Chapter 2—The Marriage Relation
Men and women, by indulging the appetite with rich and highly-
seasoned foods, especially flesh-meats and rich gravies, and by using
stimulating drinks, as tea and coffee, create unnatural appetites. The
system becomes fevered, the organs of digestion become injured, the
mental faculties are beclouded, while the baser passions are excited,
and predominate. The appetite becomes more unnatural, and more
difficult of restraint. The circulation is not equalized, and the blood
becomes impure. The whole system is deranged, and the demands of
appetite become more unreasonable, craving exciting, hurtful things,
until it is thoroughly depraved.
With many, the appetite clamors for the disgusting weed, tobacco,
and ale, made powerful by poisonous, health-destroying mixtures.
Many do not stop even here. Their debased appetites call for stronger
drink, which has a still more benumbing influence upon the brain.
Thus they give themselves up to every excess, until appetite holds
complete control over the reasoning faculties; and man, formed in the
image of his Maker, debases himself lower than the beasts. Manhood
and honor are alike sacrificed to appetite. It required time to benumb
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the sensibilities of the mind. It was done gradually, but surely. The
indulgence of the appetite in first eating food highly seasoned, created
a morbid appetite, and prepared the way for every kind of indulgence,
until health and intellect were sacrificed to lust.
Many have entered the marriage relation who have not acquired
property, and who have had no inheritance. They did not possess
physical strength or mental energy, to acquire property. It has been just
such ones who have been in haste to marry, and who have taken upon
themselves responsibilities of which they had no just sense. They did
not possess noble, elevated feelings, and had no just idea of the duty
of a husband and father, and what it would cost them to provide for
the wants of a family. And they manifested no more propriety in the
increase of their families than that shown in their business transactions.
Those who are seriously deficient in business tact, and who are the
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