The True Woman | Page 3

essential
fact concerning the origin of woman, the purpose of her creation, and
the sphere marked out for her by the Creator's hand.
The simple outline of the story is given us, yet how wonderful is the
picture! In the first chapter the origin of man is proclaimed, and his
work, "to fill earth and subdue it," is placed before him. In the second
chapter, the relation of the sexes is given, and the nature of marriage is
explained. What arrests the attention most surely is the resemblance
that exists between the experience of our first parents and of their
descendants, or between Adam and Eve and ourselves. The "It is not
good for man to be alone," spoken by God in Eden, embodies a truth
which has lived with the ages, and sets forth an experience felt by every
son of Adam. The words "I will make for him a helper suited to him,"
is man's authority for the faith, that somewhere on the earth God has
made a helper suited to him, whom he will recognize, and who will
return the recognition. For in all true marriages, now as in Eden, the
man and woman do not deliberately seek, but are brought to one
another. Happy those who afterwards can recognize that the hand
which led his Eve to Adam was that of an invisible God. Man knows
that it is not good for him to be alone. Separated from woman's

influence, man is narrow, churlish, brutal. Woman is a helper suited to
him. With her help he reaches a loftier stature; for love is the very heart
of life, the pivot upon which its whole machinery turns, without which
no human existence can be complete, and with which it becomes noble
and self-sacrificing.
Woman's origin is thus declared:--
"And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he
slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.
And of the rib which he took from the man God formed a woman, and
brought her to the man. And the man said, This now is bone of my
bones, and flesh of my flesh. This shall be called Woman, because from
man was she taken. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his
mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be one flesh."[A]
Woman was taken out of man. It is man's nature to seek to get her back.
He feels that a part of him is away from him, until he obtains her. Long
years before he sees the woman whom he feels God designed to be his
wife, if he be a Christian, believing that she is on the earth, he prays for
her weal.
[Footnote A: Gen. ii. 21-24.]
"_Taken out of man!_" How significant these words! Man, without
woman, wants completeness--physically, mentally, and spiritually. First,
physically. The fact is noticeable that short men often marry tall
women, and tall men marry short women. Nervous men marry women
who are opposites to them in temperament. This is not a happen so, for
that which so often to the unreflecting mind seems unnatural and
absurd, to the thinking soul appears as an evidence of God's provident
care. Second, mentally. Man desires in his wife that which he lacks. A
bookish man seldom desires a wife devoted to the same branch of
literature, unless she works as a helpmeet. In taste and in sentiment
there must be harmony without rivalry. They must bring products to the
common garner, gathered from varying pursuits and from different
fields of thought. In music the same law rules. Man, from his very
nature, finds in woman a helper in song. Their voices blend in harmony,
and give volume, symphony, and variety to the melody produced.
Jenny Lind married her assistant, because in sympathy they were one.
He was essential to her womanly strength, and without her, he was a
mere cipher in the musical world. Together they were a power, felt and

acknowledged.
A man full of thought and of genius requires for a wife, not only one
who can understand his moods and enjoy his creations, but one who is
content to take care of the home, and, perhaps, to manage the business
affairs; while many a woman of genius and ability links her fortunes
with a plain and appreciative husband, who gladly affords her every
means in his power to work in her special sphere. When the wife
refuses to act thus wifely, because of her talent, the happiness of the
home is imperilled, and the children suffer quite as much,
comparatively, as they do in those manufacturing neighborhoods where
the wife forsakes the home for the shop, and gives up the vocation of
woman to