wives and children to travelers

 

"We will wait here in this shady grove, and let the horses eat the luxuriant wild pea-vine until the wagons come up. This baggage is to an army what a wife and children are to a man — a soldier at least — a necessity and a comfort, whilst a trouble and an embarrassment." (September 1851, Scenes Beyond the Western Border)

"Also, you could plainly see that these easy-hearted men had no wives or children to give an anxious thought.  Almost all of them were travelers, too; for bachelors alone can travel freely, and without any twinges of their consciences touching desertion of the fireside."  The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids (April 1855)

Ha! note the offhand disclaimer in the 1851 example:  this is not necessarily the view of every man, but

"a soldier at least."