Read these lines: "It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother." According to the quoted lines, what does the narrator think the separation was meant to do?

1. The quoted lines describe mothers being taken from infants before the twelfth month as a common custom. 2. The narrator then offers the only reason he can see: to hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother. 3. Weakening the bond between mother and child restates that reason, so option C is correct. 4. The hiring out is described as sending the mother a considerable distance away, which rules out the idea of moving the child nearer to anything. _Source: Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), public domain_