Beyond all question, however, Lord Byron’s notions of connubial obligations were rather philosophical.  “There are,” said he to Captain Parry, “so many undefinable and nameless, and not to be named, causes of dislike, aversion, and disgust in the matrimonial state, that it is always impossible for the public, or the friends of the parties, to judge between man and wife.  Theirs is a relation about which nobody but themselves can form a correct idea, or have any right to speak.  As long as neither party commits gross injustice towards the other; as long as neither the woman nor the man is guilty of any offence which is injurious to the community; as long as the husband provides for his offspring, and secures the public against the dangers arising from their neglected education, or from the charge of supporting them; by what right does it censure him for ceasing to dwell under the same roof with a woman, who is to him, because he knows her, while others do not, an object of loathing?  Can anything be more monstrous, than for the public voice to compel individuals who dislike each other to continue their cohabitation?  This is at least the effect of its interfering with a relationship, of which it has no possible means of judging.  It does not indeed drag a man to a woman’s bed by physical force, but it does exert a moral force continually and effectively to accomplish the same purpose.  Nobody can escape this force, but those who are too high or those who are too low for public opinion to reach; or those hypocrites who are, before others, the loudest in their approbation of the empty and unmeaning forms of society, that they may securely indulge all their propensities in secret.”

In the course of the conversation, in which he is represented to have stated these opinions, he added what I have pleasure in quoting, because the sentiments are generous in respect to his wife, and strikingly characteristic of himself:—