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Testimonies on Sexual Behavior, Adultery, and Divorce
were more animal than divine. In fact, they were about all animal.
Men of this type degrade the wife whom they have promised to nourish
and cherish. She is made an instrument to minister to the gratification
of low, lustful propensities. And very many women submit to become
slaves to lustful passion; they do not possess their bodies in sanctifica-
tion and honor. The wife does not retain the dignity and self-respect
which she possessed previous to marriage.
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This holy institution should have preserved and increased her wom-
anly respect and holy dignity; but her chaste, dignified, godlike wom-
anhood has been consumed upon the altar of base passion; it has been
sacrificed to please her husband. She soon loses respect for the hus-
band, who does not regard the laws to which the brute creation yield
obedience. The married life becomes a galling yoke; for love dies out,
and frequently distrust, jealousy, and hate take its place.
Mistrust Between Husband and Wife—No man can truly love
his wife when she will patiently submit to become his slave, and
minister to his depraved passions. In her passive submission, she loses
the value she once possessed in his eyes. He sees her dragged down
from everything elevating, to a low level; and soon he suspects that
she will as tamely submit to be degraded by another as by himself. He
doubts her constancy and purity, tires of her, and seeks new objects
to arouse and intensify his hellish passions. The law of God is not
regarded....
The wife also becomes jealous of the husband, and suspects that if
opportunity should offer, he would just as readily pay his addresses to
another as to her. She sees that he is not controlled by conscience or
the fear of God; all these sanctified barriers are broken down by lustful
passions; all that is godlike in the husband is made the servant of low,
brutish lust....
Destructive Nature of Sexual Excess—When the wife yields her
body and mind to the control of her husband, being passive to his
will in all things, sacrificing her conscience, her dignity, and even her
identity, she loses the opportunity of exerting that mighty influence
for good which she should possess, to elevate her husband. She could
soften his stern nature, and her sanctifying influence could be exerted
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in a manner to refine and purify, leading him to strive earnestly to
govern his passions, and be more spiritually minded, that they might be