Excerpt from Speech To Leaders

Sun Myung Moon
February 23, 1977
Belvedere Training Center

In a way, this is a clear display of my strategy; many mothers had been hoping for their daughter to become the bride of the Lord someday, so I had them see how unfortunate and desolate True Mother's mother was. In short, I made her sacrifice herself so that no one would envy her. That was the only strategy I could employ to placate them and win them over.

The mothers with eligible daughters, or daughters in their late teens, thought that their daughters were candidates to become the bride. They were all devoted and faithful people, and because of that, they were also the people who caused the most problems. Consequently, some even came to see me and tell me that I was wrong to place Mrs. Hong in such an unreasonably difficult situation. They said, I don't understand, Teacher, how you can treat True Mother's mother this way; I cannot help feeling sorry for Mrs. Hong.

They comforted her. But the truth is, I had been hoping for this very outcome.

For a year after marrying Mother, I treated her in such a way that others would have thought she was my maid and not my wife. I told her, "You must not come to my room without permission. You will stay in a small room downstairs and come when I summon you."

In other words, she started from the position of a servant. I actually wanted Mother to start from the lowest position possible because many candidates for the bride of the Lord were closely watching us, to see how their teacher treated Mother. Those women saw for themselves that I treated her badly and stopped feeling envious of her, and instead thought themselves lucky not to have been chosen as the bride. That, too, was my strategy.