A Companionable Husband
"Giving honour unto the wife . . . as being heirs together of the grace of life" -- 1 Pet. 3:7
A brilliant success as a merchant and a pitiful failure as a man." It was a wife who said that, and the man she was speaking of was her husband.
Said another wife: "When I talked of the things I loved my husband just looked at me—and grunted."
These statements reveal one of the prolific causes of divorce—husbands who fail as companions to their wives. Here we have one husband who was so bent on achieving a business career that he neglected the more important thing of being a man, at least so far as his home and wife were concerned. In the case of the second husband, he was so absorbed in his own things that he had no
interest in the things his wife loved. In the case of both they gave their wives everything they wanted but the thing they wanted most of all—a husband’s companionship.
Doubtless these husbands thought their wives ought to be satisfied with the abundance of things which they provided for them. But a woman’s heart calls for something more than mere things. Both were successful in their chosen lines, and perhaps they thought their wives should be sufficiently delighted with their success. But a true wife delights more in her husband’s companionship than in any success he may win.
The best husband is the companionable husband, who has learned the secret which the Apostle Peter discloses in our text, of "giving honour unto the wife . . . as being heirs together of the grace of life." That is the kind of husband that makes a happy wife and a happy home.
