“Husbands love your wives.” Eph. v. 25.  Although formed of two bodies you are united to live in the communion of wedlock.  May this natural link, may this yoke imposed by the blessing, reunite those who are divided.  The viper, the cruelest of reptiles, unites itself with the sea lamprey, and, announcing its presence by a hiss, it calls it from the depths to conjugal union.  The lamprey obeys, and is united to this venomous animal. The fable is in Ælian, Hist. An. ix. 66, and is contradicted by Athenæus, who says (vii. p. 312):  ᾽Ανδρέας δὲ ἐν τῷ περὶ τῶν ψευδῶς πεπιστευμένων ψευδός φησιν εἶναι τὸ Μύραιναν ἔχιϊ μίγνυσθαι προσερχομένην ἐπὶ τὸ τεναγῶδες, οὐδὲ γαρ ἐπὶ τενάγους ἔχεις νέμεσθαι, φιληδοῦντας λιμώδεσιν ἐρημίαις.  Σώστρατος δὲ ἐν τοῖς περὶ Ζώων συγκατατίθεται τῇ μίξει.  What does this mean?  However hard, however fierce a husband may be, the wife ought to bear with him, and not wish to find any pretext for breaking the union.  He strikes you, but he is your husband.  He is a drunkard, but he is united to you by nature.  He is brutal and cross, but he is henceforth one of your members, and the most precious of all.