When you married your wife, she loved you. She was extremely sensitive, yet with painstaking on your part, and fortitude on hers, her health need not have been what it is. But your stern coldness made you like an iceberg, freezing up the channel of love and affection. Your censure and faultfinding has been like desolating hail to a sensitive plant. It has chilled and nearly destroyed the life of the plant. Your love of the world is eating out the good traits of your character. Your wife is of a different turn and more generous. But when she has, even in small matters, exercised her generous instincts, you have felt a drawback in your feelings and have censured her. You indulge a close and grudging spirit. You make your wife feel that she is a tax, a burden, and that she has no right to exercise her generosity at your expense. All these things are of such a discouraging nature that she feels hopeless and helpless, and has not stamina to bear up against it, but bends to the force of the …
"Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;"
The EGW passage directly addresses a husband's behavior towards his wife, echoing the principle of loving one's wife as Christ loved the church. The passage elaborates on the negative consequences of failing to love and cherish one's wife, aligning with the spirit of Ephesians 5:25.
"Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof."
The EGW passage describes the destructive power of the husband's words and actions on his wife, paralleling the proverb about the power of the tongue to bring life or death. The censure and faultfinding are likened to 'desolating hail,' illustrating the destructive potential of words.