This is the fourth installment in a series of sermons on marriage called “The Wedding Ring.” The series was written by T. DeWitt Talmage and was originally published by The Christian Herald in 1896. Some of the references are antiquated but the principles contained are timeless and invaluable. To start at the beginning of the series, click here.
 
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We are continuing with the first sermon which is actually directed toward men and is called, “The Choice of a Wife.” It contains important nuggets about what makes a good wife. Prayerfully consider his points asking for God’s refinement in areas you need help with. I know that is hard – believe me I know. I cling to my sin for dear life at times. But the freedom and rich marriage that are the fruit of refinement is priceless.
THE FIRST STEP
But the majority of you will marry, and have a right to marry, and as your religious teacher I wish to say to these men, in the choice of a wife first of all seek divine direction. About thirty-five years ago, when Martin Farquhar Tupper, the English poet, urged men to prayer before they decided upon matrimonial association, people laughed. And some of them have lived to laugh on the other side of their mouth.
EMINENT BLUNDERERS
The need of divine direction I argue from the fact that so many men, and some of them strong and wise, have wrecked their lives at this juncture. Witness Samson and this woman of Timnath! Witness Socrates, pecked of the historical Xantippe! Witness Job, whose wife had nothing to prescribe for his carbuncles but allopathic doses of profanity! Witness Ananias, a liar, who might perhaps have been cured by a truthful spouse, yet marrying as great a liar as himself–Sapphira! Witness John Wesley, one of the best men that ever lived, united to one of the most outrageous and scandalous of women, who sat in City Road Chapel, making mouths at him while he preached! Witness the once connubial wretchedness of John Ruskin, the great art essayist, and Frederick W. Robertson, the great preacher! Witness a thousand hells on earth kindled by unworthy wives, termagants that scold like a March north-easter; female spendthrifts, that put their husbands into fraudulent schemes to get money enough to meet the lavishment of domestic expenditure; opium-using women–about four hundred thousand of them in the United States–who will have the drug, though it should cause the eternal damnation of the whole household; heartless and overbearing, and namby-pamby and unreasonable women, yet married–married perhaps to good men! These are the women who build the low club-houses, where the husbands and sons go because they can’t stand it at home. On this sea of matrimony, where so many have been wrecked, am I not right in advising divine pilotage?
Now before anyone get up in arms about his harsh language, please remember his many praises for good women. And, I assure you, that he is equally harsh with his treatment of foolish men. His words are blunt but accurate. Sometimes we can forget to ask ourselves one simple question, “How does my behavior affect those around me?” A woman that takes the time to filter her choices through that question is a wise woman indeed. I am not advocating taking this to the opposite extreme of self-abuse. I have learned the dividing line the hard way. I used to be like that. How I felt about something was never a part of the equation. I worked myself to physical exhaustion and rheumatoid arthritis as a result. So, I guess the question should be, “How does my behavior affect those around me AND affect me?”
