ABSTRACT
The system of domestic life is so delicate a structure, and it is so impossible for a bystander truly to appreciate the interior events, the discussions and mutual unfitnesses that may occur in the conjugal state, that every human being must be permitted to be in a considerable degree his own judge and jury in that trial. The exercise of these functions imposes on him an awful duty. A severe moralist… will task himself to bear as much as patiently and philosophically can be born in that engagement, from respect for the universally received institutions of his contemporaries, and in some measure, of all civilized life; and especially where there are children, from a regard to what the welfare of their rising minds may require. *
