DEUT1336 To rejoice one’s wife is regarded as a full-time occupation, especially during the first year of marriage, which often either makes or breaks the marriage. This duty is considered as a national and not just a personal obligation. By consolidating your marriage, this law teaches, you perform a greater service to your nation, to the survival of your people, by having a stable home than by joining the army and defending the people in military battle. The ultimate security of our people lies in our homes. Had we relied merely on military strength and victories, we would have been extinct long ago. Hence, in the choice to be made here between home and army, priority was to be given to the home. By staying home for the first year “to rejoice your wife” you render a more essential service to the nation than by joining its defenders in the trenches. In the moral scale of values, then, even in terms of Jewish security, happy homes come before powerful armies. Jewish homes are our principal fortifications, our first line of national defence[sic]. (By Immanuel Jakobovits)