laid out at first, give advice, kindly but firmly, and she will soon learn how to perform her new duties. Let a man preserve his own position, and assist his wife to do the same: all things will then move together, well and harmoniously. Much sorrow and many heart-burnings may be avoided by judicious conduct in the outset of life. Husbands should put perfect trust and confidence in their wives, and they will rarely have cause to regret it; whilst too often, from an error in this matter in the beginning, the unhappiness of years has arisen. If your wife be diffident, encourage her, and avoid seeing small mistakes. Be pleased with trifles, and commend efforts to excel on every fitting occasion. It is unreasonable to add to the embarrassment of her new position by ridiculing delinquencies. Forbear extolling the previous management of your mother and sisters. Many a wife has been deeply wounded, and even alienated from her husband's family, by such injudicious conduct. It would be well for every young married man who wishes to render his home happy to consider his wife as the light of his domestic circle, and to permit no clouds, however small, to obscure the region in which she presides. Most women are naturally amiable, gentle, and complying; and if a wife becomes perverse, or indifferent to her home, it is usually her husband's fault. "Before a woman is your wife, you know very well, and she knows, where you spend your evenings. After that, you may know; but she does not. The first suspicion many a woman has of the waning of the honeymoon is the absence of her husband in the evening. Is there not many such a husband and many such a home? We would recommend to all young men to practise some self-denial, and to remember that no one acts with a due regard to his own happiness, who lays aside, when married, those gratifying attentions which he was ever ready to pay the lady of his love, or those rational sources of home enjoyment which made her consent to become his companion through life. WORDS are things of much import in good so ciety. Ignorance of grammar shows a condition of mind to be pitied, but not always to be blamed or ridiculed. Those persons who have been untaught or ill-taught commit, unconsciously, errors in speech and writing; but bad taste in language, when opportunities of culture have been enjoyed, seldom deserves any toleration. Among the errors of American speech and literature, * See "The Home Gift," by John F. W. Ware. none is so inexcusable as the practice of substituting the animal designations of sex or gender for the names or titles of humanity. To use the term male for man, or female for woman, degrades the idea of personality, and thus vulgarizes our language. More than this, it strikes at the root of Christian faith, that man was made "in the image of God," because it places human beings on a natural equality with animals in regard to sex. Scripture language never does this. There is no instance in the Bible where the word male is applied to man, nor female to woman, in connection with character, abilities, or attributes; nor as referring to heart, soul, mind, and imagination; nor describing any emotion or feeling, as love, pity, reverence, hope, joy: neither do the terms ever refer to any acquirement, as wisdom, skill, experience, accomplishment, nothing, in short, that implies educational capacity in which human reason is to be exercised. The term of sex, when in the Bible applied to human beings, is always used abstractly or arbitrarily. Is it proper to say male mind, male capacity, male usefulness, in reference to man. Might not the elephant, the horse, the ox, be included in the term? Yet we hear and read every day about female mind, female benevolence, female genius, etc. Is such language correct? Is the full idea of womanly humanity expressed in the animal term of gender? Sex is not an attribute of soul, nor a faculty of intellect, nor a synonym for human beings. Sex belongs to animated nature. All creatures that bring forth young are females; and, lower still, it belongs to vegetable life, as many flower-bearing trees and plants have sexual differences. The term female cannot, therefore, be a proper name for feminine humanity; nor should it be used as an adjective, except in contradistinction to man as male, abstractly, in numbering like the census, or in institutions like prisons, penitentiaries, poor-houses, which have both sexes and all ages to represent. A celebrated English writer is competent authority on this point: 66 * 'Why should a woman be degraded from her position as a rational being, and be expressed by a word which might belong to any animal tribe, and which, in our version of the Bible, is never used, except of animals or of the abstract, the sex in general. Why not call a man a 'male,' if a woman is to be a 'female'?” Perhaps a few illustrations may make these truths more clear. The poets are the best expounders of language, because they must use the most appropriate words in their truest, which is their noblest signification, in order to exalt, beautify, and perfect their themes of song. Let us take a few examples, changing the style in regard to woman to the vulgar mode of female: I grant I am a female, but, withal, A female that Lord Brutus took to wife. I grant I am a female; but, withal, A female well reputed,― Cato's daughter. Shakspeare's Julius Cæsar. * Henry Alford, D.D., Dean of Canterbury. See his "Queen's English," page 227. London, 1864. The absurdity of these substitutes is at once apparent; and the beauty, as well as truthfulness, of the word woman, in place of female, must be acknowledged. there is yet another and clearer demonstration. But If we are to be influenced by the letter of that particular verse of Scripture, "God made them male and female,” for the term to define the one sex, we are equally bound to apply this rule to the other. Let us see how this would influence our classics. He was a male, take him for all in all, Hamlet. |