THE POWER OF A WIFE

WHO shall say that the power of a wife, over a fond and loving husband, is not irresistable? A good wife brings more happiness, strength, courage and endurance home to the heart of man than anything else found in the broad field of life. With a bad wife comes the direct opposite. Ever will she make her household a continual scene of discomfiture, and it will need more strength than most men possess, to endure the trials consequent upon the confusion, indolence, extravagance and folly to be found in his home. No man can long endure, without murmuring, bad domestic influence. – Though man’s heart may be strong, it is not adamant; he delights in action and enterprize, and he needs a whole heart and tranquil mind to sustain him in all the adverse scenes of life.

Man’s moral force soon becomes expanded amid the conflicts of the world, and his home must be to him a place of cheerfulness and comfort, of repose and peace; he can never recover his equanimity and composure in a home where he meets with nothing but reproaches, sullenness, but temper and discontent. Under such order of things, hope vanishes, his spirits are crushed out of his body – his heart breaks, and he sinks in despair.

L. G. Riggs