And then—after the preliminary amorous clasping of hands, the little caressing attentions, the lingering kisses; after the fiery expectation and the rapture of possession, after all this came—as it always does—the tragedy of satiety and separation.
"And Abraham went up out of Egypt, he, and his wife and all that he had."
"AND THE WOMAN WAS TAKEN INTO PHARAOH'S HOUSE."
Yet Peter, in speaking of the duties of wives, has the temerity to refer to the "holy women of old," and holds Sarah up as a bright and shining example for us to follow, saying, "even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord." But we won't lay this up against Peter, for it is a telling fact (and shows the predicament he was in) that he had to go back nearly two thousand years to find an obedient woman. There were evidently none in his day, but as he wished to make his teaching effective and submit some proof to clinch his argument, he went back to Sarah and said, "even as Sarah obeyed Abraham," which shows he had never gotten at the real facts in the lovely Sarah's career, or else was misrepresenting Sarah to carry his point in favor of the men.
A careful perusal of my Bible convinces me that the "holy women of old," as Peter dubs them, were all afflicted with a chronic determination to have their own way—and they had it.
But the men were always obedient to the women, and each one "hearkened unto the voice of his wife" and also obeyed God and the angels.
At this point in the history of the affable Sarah and the dutiful Abraham we come to the Abraham-Hagar case, and find the hired-girl question already agitating society.