Where the mother is capable of training the children, a sensible father would leave them to her care rather than place them in the hands of a stranger.
"But, where divorce is not respectable, men who have no paternal feeling will often hold the child, not so much for its good or his own affection, as to punish the wife for disgracing him.

The love of children is not strong in most men, and they feel but little responsibility in regard to them.

See how readily they turn off young sons to shift for themselves, and, unless the law compelled them to support their illegitimate children, they would never give them a second thought.

But on the mother-soul rest forever the care and responsibility of human life.

Her love for the child born out of wedlock is often intensified by the infinite pity she feels through its disgrace.