There was once a feeble-minded, peasant farmer, who after one child asked his wife why she refused him more children? The wife’s terse retort was that perhaps if he better attended to the details of his duties and of her wants, and showed how he loved her, that she would love him more frequently and give him more children.
And so the love-smitten farmer committed himself to daily labor, from sun-up to sun-set. Each morning the farmer showed his affections by diligently attending the crops, and to the soil, and he did so to the exclusion of all other needs and wants in his life. Soon enough, the season drew to an end, and he harvested the crops. The crops were more bountiful than ever! He had enough food to feed yet another mouth. As he delivered the crops to his wife for her approval, she declared herself pregnant, and to be in the very throes of labor.
And so the farmer came to correlate this effort to her birthing, and did continue to toil and labor, to the extent of forsaking any of his own needs or wants, and surely enough, each harvest was more bountiful than the previous. With each harvest, his wife declared to deliver him yet another child. All admired the farmer, and declared him so dutiful a man that surely he and his must be blessed by God Himself. Throughout the whole of five years, the feeble-minded farmer never once thought to ask himself that as he toiled in the fields, to the exclusion even of his very own wants and needs, how then did he tend to his wife’s needs?
But no matter, for the feeble-minded farmer’s wife’s continued to clamorer that the children were the result of his diligence. The neighboring farmers’ did declare that the births must have been blessings from God for his diligence. However, might a more enlightened observer ponder if there perhaps there existed some plausible, alternate explanation for the pregnancies? How could there be any alternative explanation? To be certain, the neighboring farmers did toil less, and lounged about his very house daily enjoying fresh bread, fresh milk and honey with his wife. To be certain, the neighboring farmers’ crops were proportionately decreased in bounty, and their wives never bore them more children.
One implication of the experience is that perhaps the wife never intended to suggest that the farmer needed to learn to attend better to his field duties, but rather that he was lacking in other attentions. As is so common in research, data give rise to new questions which beg answers. Perhaps the feeble-minded farmer ought to have asked why his wife did install a back-door to their one-room shack.
