Lucian'. But as the earth, the mother of all creatures here below, sends up all its vapours and proper emissions at the command of the sun, and yet requires them again to refresh her own needs, and they are deposited between them both in the bosom of a cloud, as a common receptacle, that they may cool his flames, and yet descend to make her fruitful; so are the proprieties of a wife to be disposed of by her lord; and yet all are for her provisions, it being a part of his need to refresh and supply hers, and it serves the interest of both while it serves the necessities of either. These are the duties of them both, which have common regards and equal necessities and obligations; and, indeed, there is scarce any matter of duty, but it concerns them both alike, and is only distinguished by names, and hath its variety by circumstances and little accidents: and what in one is called love,' in the other is called reverence; and what in the wife isobedience,' the same in the man is duty.' He provides, and she dispenses; he gives cominandments, and she rules by them; he rules her by authority, and she rules him by love; she ought by all means to please him, and he must by no means displease her. For as the heart is set in the midst of the body, and though it strikes to one side by the prerogative of nature, yet those throbs and constant motions are felt on the other side also, and the influence is equal to both so it is in conjugal duties; some motions are to the one side more than to the other, but the interest is on both, and the duty is equal in the several instances. If it be otherwise, the man enjoys a wife as Periander did his dead Melissa, by an unnatural union, neither pleasing nor holy, useless to all the purposes of society, and dead to content. SERMON XVIII. PART II. "Let THE next inquiry is more particular, and considers the power and duty of the man; every one of you so love his wife even as himself;" she is as himself, the man hath power over her as over himself, and must love her equally. * Ρητόρων διδάσκαλος. A husband's power over his wife is paternal and friendly, not magisterial and despotic. The wife is in perpetua tutela,' under conduct and counsel; for the power a man hath, is founded in the understanding, not in the will or force; it is not a power of coercion, but a power of advice, and that government that wise men have over those, who are fit to be conducted by them: "Et vos in manu et in tutela non in servitio debetis habere eas; et malle patres vos, et viros, quam dominos dici," said Valerius in Livy; husbands should rather be fathers than lords.' Homer adds more soft appellatives to the character of a husband's duty; πατὴς μὲν γὰρ ἐστι αὐτῇ καὶ πότνια μητὴς, ἠδὲ κασίγνητος, 6 Thou art to be a father and a mother to her, and a brother: and great reason, unless the state of marriage should be no better than the condition of an orphan. For she that is bound to leave father, and mother, and brother for thee, either is miserable like a poor fatherless child, or else ought to find all these, and more, in thee. Medea in Euripides had cause to complain when she found it otherwise. Πάντων δ ̓, ὅσ ̓ ἔστ' ἔμψυχα, καὶ γνώμην ἔχει, Γυναῖκές ἐσμεν ἀθλιώτατον φυτόν. Ας πρῶτα μὲν δεῖ χρημάτων ὑπερβολῇ Which St. Ambroset well translates: It is sad, when virgins are with their own money sold to slavery; and that services are in better state than marriages; for they receive wages, but these buy their fetters, and pay dear for their loss of liberty;' And therefore, the Romans expressed the man's power over his wife but by a gentle word; " Nec vero mulieribus præfectus reponatur, qui apud Græcos creari solet, sed sit censor qui viros doceat moderari uxoribus;" said Cicero ; "Let there be no governor of the woman appointed, but a a censor of manners, one to teach the men to moderate their wives," that is, fairly to induce them to the measures of their own proportions. It was rarely observed of Philo, Εν τὸ μὴ φάναι, ἡ γυνὴ ἦν ἔδωκας ἐμοὶ, ἀλλὰ, μετ ̓ ἐμοῦ· οὐ γὰρ ἐμοὶ ὡς κτῆμα τὴν αἴσθησιν ἔδωκας, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὴν ἀφῆκας ἄνετον καὶ ἐλεύθερον "When Adam made that fond excuse for his folly in eating the forbidden fruit, he said The t Exhor. ad virg. • Med. 232. Porson. gave me.' He says woman thou gavest to be with me, she not The woman which thou gavest to me,' no such thing; she is none of his goods, none of his possessions, not to be reckoned amongst his servants; God did not give her to him so; but 'The woman thou gavest to be with me,' that is, to be my partner, the companion of my joys and sorrows, thou gavest her for use, not for dominion." The dominion of a man over his wife is no other than as the soul rules the body; for which it takes a mighty care, and uses it with a delicate tenderness, and cares for it in all contingencies, and watches to keep it from all evils, and studies to make for it fair provisions, and very often is led by its inclinations and desires, and does never contradict its appetites, but when they are evil, and then also not without some trouble and sorrow; and its government comes only to this, it furnishes the body with light and understanding, and the body furnishes the soul with hands and feet; the soul governs, because the body cannot else be happy, but the government is no other than provision; as a nurse governs a child, when she causes him to eat, and to be warm, and dry, and quiet and yet even the very government itself is divided; for man and wife in the family, are as the sun and moon in the firmament of heaven; he rules by day, and she by night, that is, in the lesser and more proper circles of her affairs, in the conduct of domestic provisions and necessary offices, and shines only by his light, and rules by his authority; and as the moon in opposition to the sun shines brightest, that is, then, when she is in her own circles and separate regions; so is the authority of the wife then most conspicuous, when she is separate and in her proper sphere; in gynæceo,' in the nursery and offices of domestic employment: but when she is in conjunction with the sun her brother, that is, in that place and employment in which his care and proper offices are employed, her light is not seen, her authority hath no proper business; but else there is no difference: for they were barbarous people, among whom wives were instead of servants, said Spartianus in Caracalla; and it is a sign of impotency and weakness, to force the camels to kneel for their load, because thou hast not spirit and strength enough to climb; to make the affections and evenness of a wife bend by the flexures of a servant, is a sign the man is not wise enough to govern, when another stands by. So many differences as can be in the appellatives of dominus' and domina,' governor and governess, lord and lady, master and mistress, the same difference there is in the authority of man and woman, and no more; Si tu Caius, ego Caia,' was publicly proclaimed upon the threshold of the young's man's house, when the bride entered into his hands and power; and the title of domina' in the sense of the civil law, was among the Romans given to wives. Hi Dominam Ditis thalamo deducere adorti ', said Virgil: where, though Servius says it was spoken after the manner of the Greeks, who called the wife Aéozovay, lady' or 'mistress,' yet it was so amongst both the nations. Ac domus Dominam voca,' says Catullus"; 'Hærebit Dominæ vir comes ipse suæ,' so Martial; And, therefore, although there is just measure of subjection and obedience due from the wife to the husband (as I shall after explain), yet nothing of this expressed is in the man's character, or in his duty; he is not commanded to rule, nor instructed how, nor bidden to exact obedience, or to defend his privilege; all his duty is signified by love, by nourishing and cherishing,' by being joined with her in all the unions. of charity, by not being bitter to hery,' by 'dwelling with her according to knowledge, giving honour to herz:' so that it seems to be with husbands, as it is with bishops and priests, to whom much honour is due, but yet so that if they stand upon it, and challenge it, they become less honourable: and as amongst men and women humility is the way to be preferred; so it is in husbands, they shall prevail by cession, by sweetness and counsel, and charity and compliance. So that we cannot discourse of the man's right, without describing the measures of his duty; that therefore follows next. "Let him love his wife even as himself:"-that is his duty, and the measure of it too; which is so plain, that if he understands how he treats himself, there needs nothing be added concerning his demeanour towards her, save only that we add the particulars, in which Holy Scripture instances this general commandment. tÆneid. 6. 397. "Epithal. Juliæ. 61. * Ephes. v. 25. y Col. iii. 19. 21 Pet. iii. 7. "Be not bitter against Μη πικραίνετε. That is the first. her;" and this is the least index and signification of love; a civil man is never bitter against a friend or a stranger, much less to him that enters under his roof, and is secured by the laws of hospitality. But a wife does all that and more; she quits all her interest for his love, she gives him all that she can give, she is as much the same person as another can be the same, who is conjoined by love, and mystery, and religion, and all that is sacred and profane. Non equidem hoc dubites, amborum fœdere certo They have the same fortune, the same family, the same children, the same religion, the same interest, the same flesh,' 'erunt duo in carnem unam;' and therefore this the Apostle urges for his μὴ πικραίνετε, “ no man hateth his own fesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it ;" and he certainly is strangely sacrilegious and a violater of the rights of hospitality and sanctuary, who uses her rudely, who is fled for protection, not only to his house, but also to his heart and bosom. A wise man will not wrangle with any one, much less with his dearest relative; and if it is accounted indecent to embrace in public, it is extremely shameful to brawl in public: for the other is in itself lawful; but this never, though it were assisted with the best circumstances of which it is capable. Marcus Aurelius said, that a wise man ought often to admonish his wife, to reprove her seldom, but never to lay his hands upon herb: "neque verberibus neque maledictis exasperandam uxorem," said the doctors of the Jews; and Homer brings in Jupiter sometimes speaking sharply to Juno (according to the Greek liberty and empire), but made a pause at striking her, Οὐ μὲν οἶδ', εἰ αὖτε κακοῤῥαφίης αλεγεινῆς And the ancients use to sacrifice to Juno yaunos, or, 'the a Pers. 5. 45. b Ah lapis est ferrumque, suam quicunque puellam Sit satis e membris tenuem præscindere vestem: Sit satis ornatus dissoluisse comæ : Sit lacrymas movisse satis; quater ille beatus, Quo tenera irato flere puella potest. Sed manibus qui sævus erit, scutumque sudemque Is gerât, et miti sit procul a Venere. Tibull. 1. 10. 60. e Iliad. O. 16. |