Marital Duties and Privileges
89
Sexual excess will effectually destroy a love for devotional exer-
cises, will take from the brain the substance needed to nourish the
system, and will most effectively exhaust the vitality. No woman
should aid her husband in this work of self-destruction. She will not
do it if she is enlightened and has true love for him.
The more the animal passions are indulged, the stronger do they
become, and the more violent will be their clamors for indulgence.
[125]
Let God-fearing men and women awake to their duty. Many professed
Christians are suffering with paralysis of nerve and brain because of
their intemperance in this direction
Husbands to Be Considerate—Husbands should be careful, at-
tentive, constant, faithful, and compassionate. They should manifest
love and sympathy. If they fulfill the words of Christ, their love will not
be of a base, earthly, sensual character that will lead to the destruction
of their own bodies and bring upon their wives debility and disease.
They will not indulge in the gratification of base passions, while ring-
ing in the ears of their wives that they must be subject to the husband
in everything. When the husband has the nobility of character, purity
of heart, elevation of mind that every true Christian must possess, it
will be made manifest in the marriage relation. If he has the mind of
Christ, he will not be a destroyer of the body, but will be full of tender
love, seeking to reach the highest standard in Christ
When Doubts Creep In—No man can truly love his wife when
she will patiently submit to become his slave and minister to his de-
praved passions. In her passive submission she loses the value she
once possessed in his eyes. He sees her dragged down from every-
thing 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.
These men are worse than brutes; they are demons in human form.
They are unacquainted with the elevating, ennobling principles of true,
sanctified love.
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The wife also becomes jealous of the husband and suspects that if
opportunity should offer, he would just as readily pay his addresses to
15
Testimonies For The Church 2, 477
.
16
Manuscript 17, 1891
.