The Wife's Share. 331 



my partner, and I consider your labor just as important, and 

 just as laborious, as mine." 



Here you have my platform, and I believe it to be right and 

 just, and one that our young farmers could live happily and per- 

 fectly on. I presume some readers would bring up passages from 

 the Bible to prove that the man was the superior being, but I 

 think these can be explained. The Bible favors justice every time, 

 and the above platform is just. Let us take time to look at what 

 Paul says on this point : " Wives, submit yourselves unto your 

 own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of 

 the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church." This seems 

 to settle the matter, doesn't it ? But let us see. We can hardly 

 be governed by a single passage of Scripture, taken alone. Paul 

 also says on this point, " Husbands, love your wives, even as 

 Christ loved the Church and gave himself for it." Do you fully 

 realize the strength of that statement ? What man could love his 

 wife like that, and not make her a full partner, with all a part- 

 ner's privileges, rather than a dependent that he should play the 

 lord and master over ? When we consider how woman was 

 treated and looked upon at the time Paul wrote those words, I 

 think we must acknowledge that they show more than human 

 wisdom. She was very nearly a slave, if not quite. For Paul to 

 have preached equal rights for men and women then, as I do now, 

 would have been the heighth of folly. But notice the course pur- 

 sued. The first quotation from Paul, every one would say, was 

 all right. Yes, woman must submit ; man is the head that is 

 sound. Then the second quotation no one could object to. You 

 see, without antagonizing the public sentiment of the day, Paul 

 gave advice which, if wholly lived up to, would give woman 

 about all she could ask for. But I cannot help but think that if 

 Paul were living now, with public sentiment so nearly up to the 

 equality point, he would drop out all that part about the husband 

 being the head. 



But let us look over the above platform a little. Is not the 

 work of the wife, the farmer's wife in particular, as hard for her 

 as her husband's is for him, and as important for the world's wel- 

 fare ? Her work does not bring the dollars as directly, but is it 

 any the less important ? As a rule, how much would a man 

 amount to who attempted to do his work out doors and tend to 

 his own home ? By the division of the labor between man and 

 wife, the best results come to each. We may have a home that is a 

 home. If the wife works as hard and faithfully as her husband, as 

 most farmers' wives do, at work that is necessary for the advance- 

 ment and comfort of the firm, then there is no good reason why 

 she should not be an equal partner and sharer of the proceeds of 

 their joint labor. Let me illustrate : I came in one night, and my 

 wife said to me, " How much do you suppose your work to-day 

 will bring you ? " I did not suspect what she was driving at, and 



