wives

• primitive men could kill w. if paid for

70:10.11One of the ear­li­est for­mu­la­tions of ad­vanced tribal law had to do with the tak­ing over of the blood feud as a tribal af­fair. But strange to re­late, even then a man could kill his wife with­out pun­ish­ment pro­vided he had fully paid for her. The Es­ki­mos of to­day, how­ever, still leave the penalty for a crime, even for mur­der, to be de­creed and ad­min­is­tered by the fam­ily wronged.

• always subject to more restrictive taboos than husbands

82:2.5Women have al­ways been sub­ject to more re­stric­tive taboos than men. The early mores granted the same de­gree of sex lib­erty to un­mar­ried women as to men, but it has al­ways been re­quired of wives that they be faith­ful to their hus­bands. Prim­i­tive mar­riage did not much cur­tail man’s sex lib­er­ties, but it did ren­der fur­ther sex li­cense taboo to the wife. Mar­ried women have al­ways borne some mark which set them apart as a class by them­selves, such as hair­dress, cloth­ing, veil, seclu­sion, or­na­men­ta­tion, and rings.

• once qualified by ability to work hard, bear children

82:3.7The qual­i­fi­ca­tions of a wife were the abil­ity to per­form hard work and to bear chil­dren. She was re­quired to ex­e­cute a cer­tain piece of ag­ri­cul­tural work within a given time. And if she had borne a child be­fore mar­riage, she was all the more valu­able; her fer­til­ity was thus as­sured.

• always subject to more restrictive taboos than husbands

82:4.4Mod­ern sex jeal­ousy is not in­nate; it is a prod­uct of the evolv­ing mores. Prim­i­tive man was not jeal­ous of his wife; he was just guard­ing his prop­erty. The rea­son for hold­ing the wife to stricter sex ac­count than the hus­band was be­cause her mar­i­tal in­fi­delity in­volved de­scent and in­her­i­tance. Very early in the march of civ­i­liza­tion the il­le­git­i­mate child fell into dis­re­pute. At first only the woman was pun­ished for adul­tery; later on, the mores also de­creed the chas­tise­ment of her part­ner, and for long ages the of­fended hus­band or the pro­tec­tor fa­ther had the full right to kill the male tres­passer. Mod­ern peo­ples re­tain these mores, which al­low so-called crimes of honor un­der the un­writ­ten law.

• leaving w. for sake of kingdom

150:4.3“Are not two spar­rows sold for a penny? And yet I de­clare that not one of them is for­got­ten in God’s sight. Know you not that the very hairs of your head are all num­bered? Fear not, there­fore; you are of more value than a great many spar­rows. Be not ashamed of my teach­ing; go forth pro­claim­ing peace and good will, but be not de­ceived—peace will not al­ways at­tend your preach­ing. I came to bring peace on earth, but when men re­ject my gift, di­vi­sion and tur­moil re­sult. When all of a fam­ily re­ceive the gospel of the king­dom, truly peace abides in that house; but when some of the fam­ily en­ter the king­dom and oth­ers re­ject the gospel, such di­vi­sion can pro­duce only sor­row and sad­ness. La­bor earnestly to save the whole fam­ily lest a man’s foes be­come those of his own house­hold. But, when you have done your ut­most for all of ev­ery fam­ily, I de­clare to you that he who loves fa­ther or mother more than this gospel is not wor­thy of the king­dom.”

• leaving w. for sake of kingdom

163:3.4And then said Pe­ter, “But, Mas­ter, we have left ev­ery­thing to fol­low you, what then shall we have?” And Je­sus spoke to all of the twelve: “Ver­ily, ver­ily, I say to you, there is no man who has left wealth, home, wife, breth­ren, par­ents, or chil­dren for my sake and for the sake of the king­dom of heaven who shall not re­ceive man­i­fold more in this world, per­haps with some per­se­cu­tions, and in the world to come eter­nal life. But many who are first shall be last, while the last shall of­ten be first. The Fa­ther deals with his crea­tures in ac­cor­dance with their needs and in obe­di­ence to his just laws of mer­ci­ful and lov­ing con­sid­er­a­tion for the wel­fare of a uni­verse.

• leaving w. for sake of kingdom

167:2.2“A cer­tain ruler gave a great sup­per, and hav­ing bid­den many guests, he dis­patched his ser­vants at sup­per­time to say to those who were in­vited, ‘Come, for ev­ery­thing is now ready.’ And they all with one ac­cord be­gan to make ex­cuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a farm, and I must needs go to prove it; I pray you have me ex­cused.’ An­other said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I must go to re­ceive them; I pray you have me ex­cused.’ And an­other said, ‘I have just mar­ried a wife, and there­fore I can­not come.’ So the ser­vants went back and re­ported this to their mas­ter. When the mas­ter of the house heard this, he was very an­gry, and turn­ing to his ser­vants, he said: ‘I have made ready this mar­riage feast; the fatlings are killed, and all is in readi­ness for my guests, but they have spurned my in­vi­ta­tion; they have gone ev­ery man af­ter his lands and his mer­chan­dise, and they even show dis­re­spect to my ser­vants who bid them come to my feast. Go out quickly, there­fore, into the streets and lanes of the city, out into the high­ways and the by­ways, and bring hither the poor and the out­cast, the blind and the lame, that the mar­riage feast may have guests.’ And the ser­vants did as their lord com­manded, and even then there was room for more guests. Then said the lord to his ser­vants: ‘Go now out into the roads and the coun­try­side and con­strain those who are there to come in that my house may be filled. I de­clare that none of those who were first bid­den shall taste of my sup­per.’ And the ser­vants did as their mas­ter com­manded, and the house was filled.”

• leaving w. for sake of kingdom

171:2.2“You who would fol­low af­ter me from this time on, must be will­ing to pay the price of whole­hearted ded­i­ca­tion to the do­ing of my Fa­ther’s will. If you would be my dis­ci­ples, you must be will­ing to for­sake fa­ther, mother, wife, chil­dren, broth­ers, and sis­ters. If any one of you would now be my dis­ci­ple, you must be will­ing to give up even your life just as the Son of Man is about to of­fer up his life for the com­ple­tion of the mis­sion of do­ing the Fa­ther’s will on earth and in the flesh.