uperseded in
its turn by some new attraction. Where, on the other hand, the union is
the result, not of love, but of mutual esteem and confidence, aided by
motives of convenience, the very possibility of an easy divorce would
render each party captious and suspicious, so that confidence could be
easily shaken, and esteem easily impaired; while in those who expect
always to have a common home the tendency is to those habits of mutual
tolerance, accommodation, and concession, through which confidence and
esteem ripen into sincere and lasting affection.

As in many respects each family must be a unit, and as the conflict of
rival powers is no less ruinous to a household than to a state, *the
family must needs have one recognized head* or representative, and this
place is fittingly held by the husband rather than by the wife; for by the
laws and usages of all civilized nations he is held responsible--except in
criminal matters--for his wife and his minor children. But in the
well-ordered family, each party to the marriage-contract is supreme in his
or her own department, and in that of the other prompt in counsel,
sympathy, and aid, and slow in dissent, remonstrance, or reproof. These
departments are defined with perfect distinctness by considerations of
intrinsic fitness, and any attempt to interchange them can be only
subversive of domestic peace and social order.

*The parent's duties to the child* are maintenance in his own condition in
life, care for his education and his moral and religious culture, advice,
restraint when needed, punishment when both deserved and needed, pure
example and wholesome influence, aid in the formation of habits and
aptitudes suited to his probable calling or estate in his adult years, and
provision for his favorable entrance on his future career. Some of these
duties are obviously contingent on the parent's ability; others are
absolute and imperative. The judicious parent will, on the one hand,
retain his parental authority as long as he is legally responsible for his
child; but, on the other hand, will train him gradually to self-help and
self-dependence, and will concede to him, as he approaches years of
maturity, such freedom of choice and action as is consistent with his
permanent well-being.

*The child's duty* is unqualified submission to the parent's authority,
obedience to his commands, and compliance with his wishes, in all things
not morally wrong, and this, not only for the yea