nd
Luther, a man full of human affection, speaking of his wife, said, "I
would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus
without her." Of marriage he observed: "The utmost blessing that God can
confer on a man is the possession of a good and pious wife, with whom
he may live in peace and tranquillity--to whom he may confide his whole
possessions, even his life and welfare." And again he said, "To rise
betimes, and to marry young, are what no man ever repents of doing."

For a man to enjoy true repose and happiness in marriage, he must have
in his wife a soul-mate as well as a helpmate. But it is not requisite
that she should be merely a pale copy of himself. A man no more desires
in his wife a manly woman, than the woman desires in her husband a
feminine man. A woman's best qualities do not reside in her intellect,
but in her affections. She gives refreshment by her sympathies, rather
than by her knowledge. "The brain-women," says Oliver Wendell Holmes,
"never interest us like the heart-women." [205] Men are often so wearied
with themselves, that they are rather predisposed to admire qualities
and tastes in others different from their own. "If I were suddenly
asked," says Mr. Helps, "to give a proof of the goodness of God to us, I
think I should say that it is most manifest in the exquisite difference
He has made between the souls of men and women, so as to create the
possibility of the most comforting and charming companionship that the
mind of man can imagine." [206] But though no man may love a woman for her
understanding, it is not the less necessary for her to cultivate it on
that account. [207] There may be difference in character, but there must
be harmony of mind and sentiment--two intelligent souls as well as two
loving hearts:

"Two heads in council, two beside the hearth,
Two in the tangled business of the world,
Two in the liberal offices of life."

There are few men who have written so wisely on the subject of marriage
as Sir Henry Taylor. What he says about the influence of a happy union
in its relation to successful statesmanship, applies to all conditions
of life. The true wife, he says, should possess such qualities as will
tend to make home as much as may be a place of repose. To this end, she
should have sense enough or worth enough to exempt her husband as much
as possible from the troubles of family management, and more especially
from all possib