There are gardens within the home, and there are gardens that belong to the public. If you spend your time tending to the public garden—watering it, weeding it, trimming it, and fertilizing it— but neglect the garden within your own home, which one do you think will thrive in the long run?

Which one will look more beautiful? Isn’t the answer obvious?

But before we complain about another’s neglect, should we not ask ourselves: have we played a part in it? Have we truly cared for the garden that belongs to us?

Or have we carried the mentality that, since we are already in a long-term relationship or marriage— “he or she won’t go away; we are bound by duty”— there is no need to keep tending?

Human nature is such that no one likes being told they are wrong. We are always “right” in our own eyes until the results of life prove us otherwise.

A husband’s rebuke often stirs defiance. The wiser path is not direct correction from him, but gentle reminders from her own circle of women.

In well-ordered households, women guide women toward restraint. But if her circle of friends is already a lost cause, then your situation is likely to end not as harmony but as a cautionary tale for others.

~

It is the cause-and-effect cycle of the past generation. In earlier times, were there not many women who stayed loyal, enduring both hardship and prosperity with their husbands? Yes, plenty.

But what happened? Many husbands cast aside their wives once they became successful.

This generation of women was raised with that awareness, they know the mistakes of the past. So who is to blame? No one. It is simply nature completing the cycle.

Until society recognizes the harm it is inflicting, this cycle will continue to turn, bringing its damage back upon us, until we finally decide to wake up and put a stop to it.