Primacy of Love for God

Primacy of Love for God is Helen’s principle that devotion to God must remain above even the deepest earthly attachment. In her exchange with Arthur, it becomes a direct challenge to his expectation that her religious feeling should be limited so that he can command the foremost place in her heart. Helen argues not against marital love, but against treating it as a rival to faith: love rightly ordered toward God makes human love more, not less, true.

The Dispute Over Devotion

Arthur presents Helen’s piety as one of her greatest charms, yet says it can go too far. He objects that a woman’s religion should not lessen her devotion to her earthly lord, and complains that she has been absorbed in prayer for two hours without sparing him a glance. His joking admission that he is jealous of her Maker gives the conflict a teasing surface, but exposes the serious assumption beneath it: that a husband may expect priority over his wife’s attention and affections.

Helen answers by drawing a firm boundary. She says she will give her whole heart and soul to her Maker, and not one atom more to Arthur than God allows. Her question about who Arthur is to set himself up as a god makes the distinction pointed: the husband is not entitled to claim a divine authority over her conscience. She even holds his place in her life within this order, describing him as a possible blessing rather than an unquestionable one.

A Love Made Truer, Not Smaller

Helen does not present this hierarchy as a rejection of Arthur. She tells him that she loves him more than he loves her, yet says she would not complain if he loved her far less, provided he loved his Maker more. The measure she proposes is not the amount of attention a spouse can secure, but the character of the love itself. Her willingness to rejoice if Arthur were absorbed in devotion reverses his complaint that prayer has deprived him of her gaze.

She further insists that she would lose nothing by such a change: the more Arthur loved God, the deeper, purer, and truer his love for her would become. In this account, religious devotion does not drain affection from marriage; it disciplines and ennobles it. Arthur responds by laughing, kissing her hand, and calling her a sweet enthusiast, a reaction that leaves her argument standing while treating its seriousness as a charming excess.

Marriage, Possession, and Conscience

The scene reveals a fundamental difference in what the spouses expect from love. Arthur regards Helen’s attention to God as a form of competition and asks that religion be kept within limits compatible with his own claim on her. Helen refuses to make her conscience subordinate to that claim. Her physical hold on his arm briefly tightens as she speaks, then relaxes; the gesture accompanies her forceful answer without changing its central point that earthly attachment cannot authorize possession of the soul.

The principle also distinguishes affection from obedience to a husband’s desire. Helen can love Arthur intensely while denying that he should occupy God’s place or determine how much devotion she may give to God. Her reply therefore offers a standard for marriage based on moral accountability rather than exclusive emotional ownership. Arthur’s affectionate teasing does not resolve the disagreement: the exchange establishes the conviction by which Helen judges the claims made on her heart.

Significance

Primacy of Love for God gives Helen a basis for resisting a marital ideal in which a wife’s piety is acceptable only so long as it serves her husband. Her reasoning is reciprocal in its moral aspiration—she wants Arthur to love God more, not to love her less—and exposes the insecurity of a demand that earthly love take precedence over conscience. The scene’s decisive contrast is between Arthur’s jealousy of a devotion he cannot command and Helen’s belief that love ordered toward God can make human attachment deeper and more faithful.