e home. The father
was the religious teacher of his family, and this duty necessarily
increased his domesticity. He took greater interest in his children
because it was his task to teach them the law, and his devotion to his
wife was directly dependent on his service to the family. One of the
Rabbis, on this question of the Jewish husband ill-treating his wife,
said in framing his regulations "This is a thing not done in Israel."

I would ask you to note that the woman does not become a nonentity by
reason of her limitation to a definite sphere of action within the
home. Such a view is entirely absent among the Jews. The rule over the
home-life held through the centuries by the Jewish wife is far more real
in its results of power than the so-called equality claimed by a modern
woman, acting under the influence of industrial ideals. What is
significant (and ought to teach us if we can be taught) is the fact that
such power is held by women in right of their position as wives and
mothers; it is never extended to young girls or to unmarried women on
account of their attraction and sexual power over men, in the way to
which we have become accustomed. That is unknown, at least, in
connection with marriage. The Jew understands that there are other ways
of loving than falling in love. Power is held universally by the house
mistress--the mother, whose desires through life are a law unto her
husband and her children.

All Jewish literature is filled with examples of reverence expressed
towards mothers who are "the teachers of all virtue." In the moral law
the command to fear the mother--that is to treat her with respect, is
placed even before the duty of fearing the father (Lev. xix. 8).
Enduring evidence remains of the spiritual status of mothers. When the
Prophet of Exiles wishes to depict God as the Comforter of his people,
he says "As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you" (Is.
lxvi. 13). When the Psalmist describes his utter woe, he laments, "As
one mourning for his mother, I was bowed down with grief."

Perhaps, now as we see the mother taken as the one sufficient symbol of
Jehovah's dealing with his people, the mourning for her presence being
the completest expression of grief, we can come to understand something
of the Jewish ideal of marriage and of the high honor, _because of this
ideal_, in which women were held.

VII

It should be plain enough now why English marriages so often are
unhappy. Th