Why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife

When I sailed to Kiniwata in the Pacific, I took along a notebook.  I filled it with descriptions of flora and fauna, native customs and costumes.  The only note that still interests me says:  “Johnny Lingo gave eight cows to Sarita’s father.”  I’m reminded every time I see a woman belittling her husband or a wife withering under her husband’s scorn.  I want to say, “You should know why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife.”

Johnny Lingo wasn’t his name; that’s what Shenkin, the guest house manager, called him.  Shenkin had a habit of Americanizing names.  But Johnny was mentioned by many people in many connections.  If I wanted to spend a few days on the neighboring island of Nurabandi, Johnny Lingo could put me up.  If I wanted to fish, he’d show me where biting was best.  If it was pearls I sought, he’d bring me the best.

The people of Kiniwata spoke highly of Johnny Lingo.  Yet they smiled, and the smiles were mocking.

“Get Johnny Lingo to help you find what you want and let him do the bargaining,” advised Shenkin.  “Johnny knows how to make a deal.”

“Johnny Lingo!”  A boy seated nearby hooted and rocked with laughter.

“What goes on?”  I demanded.  “Everybody tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up.  Let me in on the joke.”

“Oh, the people like to laugh,” Shenkin said, shrugging.  “Johnny’s the brightest, strongest young man in the islands.  And for his age, the richest.”

“But, if he’s all you say, what is there to laugh about?”

“Only one thing.  Five months ago, at fall festival, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife.  He paid her father eight cows!”

I knew enough about island customs to be impressed.  Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one.

“Eight cows!” I said.  “She must have beauty that takes your breath away.”

“She’s not ugly,” he conceded, “But the kindest could only call Sarita plain.  Sam Karoo, her father, was afraid she’d be left on his hands.”

“But then he got eight cows for her?  Isn’t that extraordinary?”

“Never been paid before.”

“Yet you call his wife plain?”

“It would be kindness to call her plain.  She was skinny.  She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked.  She was scared of her own shadow.”

“Well,” I said, “I guess there’s just no accounting for love.”

“True enough,” agreed the man.  “That’s why the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny.  They get satisfaction from the fact that the islands’ sharpest trader was bested by dull old Sam Karoo.”

“But how?”

“No one knows and everyone wonders.  All the cousins were urging Sam to ask for three cows and hold out for two until he was sure Johnny’d pay only one.  Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said, ‘Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.’”

“Eight cows,” I murmured.  “I’d like to meet this Johnny Lingo.”

The next afternoon I beached my boat at Nurabandi.  I noticed as I asked directions to Johnny’s house that his name brought no sly smile to the lips of his fellow Nurabandians.  And when I met the slim, serious young man, when he welcomed me with grace to his home, I was glad that from his own people he had respect without mockery.  We sat in his house and talked.  Then he asked, “You come here from Kiniwata?”

“Yes.”

“They speak of me there?”

“They say there’s nothing that you can’t help me get.”

He smiled gently.  “My wife is from Kiniwata.”

“Yes, I know.”

“They speak of her?”

“A little.”

“What do they say?”

“Why, just.....”  The question caught me off balance.  “They told me you were married at festival time.”

“Nothing more?”  The curve of his eyebrows told me he knew there had to be more.

“They also say the marriage settlement was eight cows.”  I paused. “They wonder why.”

“They ask that?”  His eyes lighted with pleasure.  “Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the eight cows?”

I nodded.

“And in Nurabandi everyone knows.”  His chest expanded with satisfaction.  “Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita.”

That’s the answer, I thought: vanity.

But then I saw her.  I watched her enter the room to place flowers on the table.  She stood still a moment to smile at the young man beside me.  Then she went out.  She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.  The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin, the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a joy to which no one could deny her the right.

I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me.

“You admire her?” he murmured.

“She ... she’s glorious.  But she’s not Sarita from Kiniwata,” I said.

“There’s only one Sarita.  Perhaps she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata.”

“She doesn’t.  I heard she was homely.  They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated.”

“You think eight cows were too many?”  A smile slid over his lips.

“No, not at all.  But how can she be so different?”

“Do you ever think,” he asked, “what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought?  Women boast of what their husbands paid.  One says four cows, another six.  How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two?  This could not happen to my Sarita.”

“Then you did this just to make your wife happy?”

“I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes.  But I wanted more than that.  You say she is different.  This is true.  Many things can change a woman.  Things that happen inside, things that happen outside.  But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself.  In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing.  Now she knows she is worth more than any woman in the islands.”

“Then you wanted--”

“I wanted to marry Sarita.  I loved her and no other woman.”

“But--”  I was close to understanding.

“But,” he finished softly, “I wanted an eight-cow wife.”

Condensed from WOMAN’S DAY magazine fiction feature - Nov. 1965 By Patricia McGerr

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Every man knows that a wife can give him the joys of heaven on earth.  Few men are as wise as Johnny who understood God’s teaching that a man should praise and uphold his wife to receive the joy God intended:

Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.  Proverbs 31:28-29

Children don’t praise their mothers unless their father does it.  Johnny not only told his wife he valued her, he proclaimed her price “far above rubies” to all the world as taught in the Song of Solomon:

My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her.  Song of Solomon 6:9

A woman is a mirror, not a light; she multiplies whatever her husband gives her.  A man gives his wife one tiny cell.  She multiplies his seed within her and gives him a baby with billions of cells.  Every one of her child’s billions of cells bears the mark of her husband’s DNA (Gen. 5:3).

Johnny gave Sarita unshakable confidence that he treasured everything about her and that he valued her above all else.  God made women for men (I Corinthians 11:8-9).  A woman desires to have her husband be pleased with her (Gen3:16).  Being valued by Johnny made Sarita happy.  The joy and happiness he gave her multiplied in her, made her beautiful, flowed out of her, and filled her surroundings with love and light.

The price for a “best wife” was 5 or 6 cows.  By going so far beyond that, Johnny said that his wife was far beyond the best.  Her happiness in belonging to him brought Johnny honor – he was “known in the gates.”  Local people who knew her honored him; those who didn’t understand mocked him.

We don’t buy wives in America, but a man can make his wife feel like a treasure by praising her, thanking God for her, and thanking her for being willing to let God give her to him.

Johnny may not have known that God made women as a favor to men (Pr.18:22) or that God knows how (Mt. 7:11) to give good and perfect gifts (James 1:17), but he knew that he had to honor his wife to receive the blessing God intended.  God gave Handel and Mozart great musical gifts.  They labored to develop their gifts and blessed us as Sarita blessed Johnny.  How could she bless him?  He treated his wife as God’s precious treasure; she became God’s precious treasure.  How many have neglected God’s gifts and lost the blessing?

I’ve seen men give wives criticism, bitterness, discouragement, anger.  The Bible warns 5 times (Pr. 19:13, 21:9, 21:19, 25:24, 27:15) that an unhappy woman multiplies unhappiness no matter how she tries to keep sorrow to herself.  When a man sows unhappiness to his wife, it’s no surprise that he reaps a house full of pain.

This works both ways, of course.  Proverbs 12:18 says, “There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword: but the tongue of the wise is health.”  If a couple’s words are health to each other, they’ll always want to hear what the other has to say.  How can anyone love a spouse who inflicts daily hurt?

Johnny honored, praised, and sanctified his wife (I Thessalonians 4:4); everyone knew she was the most valued, most treasured wife in all the islands.  Being convinced that her husband thought so highly of her gave Sarita the emotional strength to enjoy belonging to Johnny.  This gave him a taste of the joys of heaven on earth, just as God planned.

A woman gives a man joy by multiplying the happiness gives her and reflecting his joy in her back to him.  God created women so that a woman can give her husband a taste of the joys of heaven, but she can’t make him any happier than he makes her.