There is also another condition in the social relations, that but
very few individuals could reconcile themselves to sustain. It is
in supporting and having two families. There are a large number of
business men from the North--captains and officers of Steam Boats, and
captains of French, English, and American vessels--who spend more than
half the time in this city, and many of them have families at home; yet
here they have their mistresses and children, and are as much at home
with them as with their lawful wives. The condition and connection of
these persons together are perfectly understood, as is also the fact,
with most of them, that they have another family. Yet these things are
not often made a matter of others’ business, and consequently they are
all “very respectable.” This class of females, to some extent, live as
confidingly honest, and as strictly preserve the character of a wife,
as if the man had no other attachments. And any act on her part of
infidelity would be regarded as a sufficient cause of separation, and
she would be discarded as readily as if they were lawfully married.
Such separations often occur from jealousy, or from suspicion of
attachment to another. And when a separation has actually been made,
the parties appear more hostile, and manifest a more deadly hatred
towards each other, than is ever witnessed in separations of those
lawfully connected. And these quarrels are seldom if ever reconciled,
but continue to increase with a savage hatred, that not unfrequently
ends sadly to the one or the other, or to the individual who has
seduced the woman from her alliance. These men who thus live in these
connections are generally persons of ample means, and usually appear to
be proud of the distinction of being able to support two families.