Chapter 2
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It is the duty of every married couple to studiously avoid marring
the feelings of each other. They should control every look, and ex-
pression of fretfulness, and passion. They should study each others’
happiness, in small matters, as well as in large, manifesting a tender
thoughtfulness, in acknowledging kind acts, and the little courtesies of
each other. These small things should not be neglected, for they are
just as important to the happiness of man and wife, as food is necessary
to sustain physical strength. The father should encourage the wife and
mother to lean upon his large affections. Kind, cheerful, encouraging
words from him, with whom she has entrusted her life-happiness, will
be more beneficial to her than any medicine; and the cheerful rays of
light, such sympathising words will bring to the heart of the wife and
mother, will reflect back their own cheering beams upon the heart of
the father.
The husband will frequently see his wife care-worn and debilitated,
growing prematurely old, in laboring to prepare food to suit the vitiated
taste. He gratifies the appetite, and will eat and drink those things
which cost much time and labor to prepare them for the table, and
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which have a tendency to make those who partake of these unhealthy
things, nervous and irritable. The wife and mother is seldom free
from the headache, and the children are suffering the effects of eating
unwholesome food, and there is a great lack of patience and affection
with parents and children. All are sufferers together, for health has
been sacrificed to lustful appetite. The offspring, before its birth, has
transmitted to it disease, and an unhealthy appetite. And the irritability,
nervousness, and despondency, manifested by the mother, will mark
the character of her child.
In past generations, if mothers had informed themselves in regard
to the laws of their being, they would have understood that their consti-
tutional strength, as well as the tone of their morals, and their mental
faculties, would in a great measure be represented in their offspring.
Their ignorance upon this subject, where so much is involved, is crim-
inal. Many women never should have become mothers. Their blood
was filled with scrofula, transmitted to them from their parents, and in-
creased by their gross manner of living. The intellect has been brought
down, and enslaved to serve the animal appetites, and children, born of
such parents, have been poor sufferers, and of but little use to society.