Last week, I talked about how husbands should treat their wives. Previously, I spoke about how important respect is to men and how wives should try to show respect to their husbands. But what if your husband or wife doesn’t deserve your respect or honor? How can I expect a wife to treat her husband with respect if he doesn’t show her honor? Likewise, how can I expect a husband to honor his wife if she doesn’t show him some respect? I would like to answer this question with a story. This story isn’t original, but I have found it to be true in my own experience. It’s about cows….
A missionary was on a remote island in the Pacific. As he was discussing trade with the locals, he kept hearing the name Johnny Lingo come up. But each time the name was spoken, several bystanders would break out into laughter.
“Johnny Lingo’s the sharpest trader in this part of the Pacific.” He kept hearing. And then the laughter would begin.
“What goes on?” he demanded. “Everybody around here tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up. Is this some kind of trick, a wild-goose chase, like sending someone for a left-handed wrench? Is there no such person or is he the village idiot or what? Let me in on the joke.”
“Not idiot,” said one of the men. “Only one thing. Five months ago, at festival time, Johnny came to the island and found himself a wife. He paid her father eight cows!”
He spoke the last words with great solemnity and the missionary knew enough about island customs to be thoroughly impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one.
“Eight cows!” the missionary responded. “She must have been a beauty that takes your breath away.”
“That’s why they laugh,” the man said. “It would be kindness to call her plain. She was little and skinny with no–ah–endowments. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked, as if she was trying to hide behind herself. Her cheeks had no color, her eyes never opened beyond a slit and her hair was a tangled mop half over her face. She was scared of her own shadow, frightened by her own voice. She was afraid to laugh in public. She never romped with the girls, so how could she attract the boys?”
“But she attracted Johnny?”
This is the story they told him:
“Sarits’a father, Sam knew that his daughter was not going to bring a high price. His family advised him to ask for three cows and hold out for two until he was sure to get one. But Sam was in such a stew and so afraid there’d be some slip in this marriage chance for Sarita that he knew he couldn’t hold out for anything. So while he waited he resigned himself to accepting one cow, and thought, instead, of his luck in getting such a good husband for Sarita. Then Johnny came into the tent and, without waiting for a word from anyone, went straight up to Sam, grasped his hand and said, “Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.” And he delivered the cows.
“As soon as it was over Johnny took Sarita to a nearby island to live and we haven’t seen them since. There’s not much travel between the islands.”
The story interested the missionary, so he decided to investigate.
The next day he reached the island where Johnny lived. When he met him, he was welcomed into his home. The missionary told Johnny that his people had spoken of him.
“They speak much of me on that island? What do they say?”
“They say you are a sharp trader,” he said. “They also say the marriage settlement that you made for your wife was eight cows. They wonder why.”
“They say that?” His eyes lighted with pleasure. He seemed not to have noticed the question. “Everyone on the island knows about the eight cows?”
The missionary nodded.
“And everyone knows about it here, too.” His chest expanded with satisfaction. “Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita.”
So that’s the answer, he thought with disappointment. All this mystery and wonder and the explanation’s only vanity. It’s not enough for his ego to be known as the smartest, the strongest, the quickest. He had to make himself famous for his way of buying a wife. The missionary was tempted to deflate Johnny by reporting that he had been laughed at for a fool.
As they were speaking, a woman entered the adjoining room and placed a bowl of blossoms on the dining table. She stood still a moment to smile with sweet gravity at Johnny. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. This girl had an ethereal loveliness. The dew-fresh flowers with which she’d pinned back her lustrous black hair accented the glow of her cheeks. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right. And as she turned to leave she moved with grace that made her look like a queen.
When she was out of sight the missionary turned back to Jonny Lingo and found him looking back at him with eyes that reflected the pride of the girl’s.
“You admire her?” he murmured.
“She – she’s glorious. Who is she?” (He couldn’t help but think – if she was a servant, how difficult it must be for homely Sarita, having to daily be in the presence of such a beautiful woman. And what a temptation for Mr. Lingo!)
“She is my wife.”
The missionary stared at him blankly. Was this some custom he had not heard about? Do they practice polygamy here? Had Johnny, for his eight cows, bought both Sarita and this other? Before he could form a question Johnny spoke again.
“This is the only one – Sarita.” His way of saying the words gave them a special significance. “Perhaps you wish to say she does not look the way they say she looked when we married.”
“She doesn’t.” he replied. “I heard she was homely. They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated by her father.”
“You think he cheated me? You think eight cows were too many?” A slow smile slid over his lips as the missionary shook his head. “She can see her father and her friends again. And they can see her. Do you think anyone will make fun of us then? Much has happened to change her. Much in particular happened the day she went away.”
“You mean she married you?”
“That, yes. But most of all, I mean the arrangements for the marriage.”
“Arrangements?”
“Do you ever think,” he asked reflectively, “what it does to a woman when she knows that the price her husband has paid is the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when all the women talk, as women do, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel – the woman who was sold for one or two? This could not happen to my Sarita.”
“Then you paid that unprecedented number of cows just to make your wife happy?”
“Happy?” He seemed to turn the word over on his tongue, as if to test its meaning. “I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes, but I wanted more than that. You say she’s different from the way they remember her. This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. Back on the island, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows that she is worth more than any other woman on the islands.”
“Then you wanted…”
“I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman.”
“But-” the missionary was close to understanding.
“But,” Johnny finished softly, “I wanted an eight-cow wife.”
If you want a husband or wife like no other – treat them like no other. They will become what they think they are worth.