3471 — Duty to a Husband
By Editor
Does God's Word bind a wife to her husband who has been abusive and cruel ever since marriage? Every now and then she has had to take a whipping for more than half a score of years. She is economical, but he is so afraid she will spend his money that he hires her to do his work; constantly ridicules her religion without a cause. Would she be justified in taking her child and living by herself in peace? A Sister. On the face of it, yes, leave him. See 1 Cor. 7:10 and the last clause of verse 15. Whether she could save him by remaining, is for her to decide. If God has placed upon her no such burden, we would not. It would be a blessing to such a man to live in a certain part of Scotland, where the women of a neighborhood took into their own hand the punishment of wife-beaters. A goodly company took the wife-beater down to the beach and ducked him again and again, and repeated the operation till he reformed. For many years, the account is, there has been no wife-beating in that neighborhood. If the wife is but a hired woman, she can leave when she will. It might do him good if she would very kindly, very Christianly, very firmly, tell him so, and then do it in the same spirit. A few months of such treatment may help him. Then if she returns, let it be as a wife, with legal papers to show she is a partner in the business.