D. L. Moody once said, and which I hardly understood at the time:  “When a wife knew that the man that should be her husband was unfaithful and corrupt, she was as bad as he if she lived with him.”  I have thought much of the meaning of husband.  He is one who is a man who provides and cares for his family, as much as it is in his power to do, but when he refuses and will not do this, he breaks his marriage vow and becomes his wife’s enemy.  A husband is not an enemy.  This will place many women in the roll of living with men who are not their husbands, and this is so.  I do not favor divorce, but it is better to separate, than bring up children of drunkards or licentious fathers.  There is nothing which is making so much enmity between the sexes as intoxicating drink.  This is the cause of so many divorces.  Men who go into saloons generally visit houses of prostitution.  The women they meet there have been deceived and lost their self respect, become discouraged because men have made them their victims through treachery and in turn these women revenge themselves by taking all means to drag these men down.  Prostitutes do not like men; they often hate them.  The man who goes there generally loses respect for the virtues of women, and from associating with bad women they judge other women to be vile.  These men hate the very women they go to see.  Married men who drink are bad husbands, for they deceive their wives, who soon find it out; and the husbands and wives cannot be happy.  A woman leaves all others for one man and she wishes his society.  In the evening the clubs and drinking places take up men’s time when their families should have it.  These things destroy love and confidence between husbands and wives.  ’Tis not all men’s fault, for there are some drinking women.

A man came to me just before I went on the stage at Newport, and said:  “Carry Nation, step aside here, I must speak to you.  I am in so much trouble.  Give me some advice.  My wife is at home drunk; she is that way most of the time.  We have six children and they feel disgraced.  What can I do?  I am almost wild.”

I asked:  “Did you ever drink with your wife?”

He looked confused.  I said:  “Women do not usually go to saloons but you men bring it home and use it on the table and women are just as apt to catch the disease of alcoholism as men.  This may be the way your wife learned to be a drunkard.  Wives have been nursing their drunken husbands for years; now the chickens have come home to roost, and you are nursing your drunken wives.”

Poor man!  He, indeed, seemed distracted; and he is not alone, there are hundreds of cases.