Father-in-law

“ He is the mother’s brother, and he is also the prospective or actual father-in-law, and we have no means of telling in which of these two rôles he performs his duties. If the duties of a man towards his sister’s son among the Todas be a relic of mother-right, there can be little doubt that this condition must have been very remote. ”

“ If a man has brought in a present to the house of his father-in-law, has given a dowry, and a comrade of his has slandered him, his father-in-law has said to the claimant of the wife, ‘My daughter thou shalt not espouse,’ he shall make up and return all that he brought him, and his comrade shall not marry his wife. ”

“ But if a son having a wife and children should die during the life of his father, before his father has given him all that he was entitled to from his estate, and his sons should also die during the life of their grandfather, the daughter-in-law shall receive only so much as the father had formerly set aside for her husband. Nor can the widow claim any more than this from her father-in-law or any of his relatives. ”

“ A son-in-law is the man for whom we bring up, you and I, a dear little one, bound to us very closely in innumerable ways; for seventeen years she will be the joy of her family, its ‘white soul,’ as Lamartine says, and suddenly she will become its scourge. ”

“ You must know that a troublesome father-in-law is so rare that the public would flock to see him. But you couldn’t get anything for a troublesome mother-in-law. There are too many families trying to get rid of them, at any price. ”

“ Here, again, it is plain that marriage with the widowed mother-in-law follows, and does not precede, marriage with her daughter; a man first marries his cousin and takes up his abode with her parents; afterwards, when his father-in-law dies, he marries the widow, his mother-in-law.
(5) Further, Major A. Playfair, in treating of inheritance among the Garos, writes as follows:
"Although a man cannot inherit property, his machong [motherhood] assumes a right to control what his wife has brought him. ”

“ The patria potestas, unless the paterfamilias voluntarily put an end to it, lasted as long as he lived and retained his status. The marriage of a son, unlike that of a daughter passing into the hand of a husband, did not release him from it, nor did his children become subject to him so long as he himself was in potestate. On the contrary, his wife passed on marriage into the power of her father-in-law, and their children as they were born fell under that of their paternal grandfather ”

“ If the court appoints a guardian, the law (1894) requires that it "shall choose the father, or his testamentary appointee; then the mother if [still] unmarried, then next of kin, giving preference to the males." ”

“ Another law enacted that if a father during his own lifetime gave up all his property to his son, it followed, as a matter of course, that the son must support both his father and the wife of his father. ”

“ Cousins were allowed to marry but not nearer relatives. As a rule a widow was not permitted to remarry except a brother of her deceased husband and in case she had children by the first marriage, then it was the duty of the brother-in-law to marry her that the children might not be without the care and protection of a father. ”

“ The father is the legal guardian of the minor children and by will may appoint a guardian of their property, but he can not deprive the mother of the custody of their persons.
The husband is required by law to support and maintain his family out of his estate and by his services unless the wife sees fit to allow him to use her property for this purpose. ”

“ Fathers should petition the Chambers to pass a law against marriage. If you love your daughters, do not let them marry. A son-in-law is a rascal who poisons a girl’s mind and contaminates her whole nature. ”

“ A father's right to the custody of his own children being founded in law on the right of guardianship, this being taken away, they may of course be severed from him, and put by the authority of the court, into more orthodox hands. ”

“ The paternity is the essential clue to learn the kindred, whether it be of the whole or half blood; and the primary element in this ascertainment is wanting where no father to either party is to be found, and when the law itself declares that there is none. ”

“ Fearing that love might outweigh reason and calculation in the young, the law granted to the father the right to give notice of divorce to the daughter-in-law, instead of leaving it to the son; so that the father was able to make and unmake the marriages of his sons, as he thought useful and fitting, without taking their will into account. ”

“ The suggestion rather than contention that if the state law be held applicable to determine next of kin, the right should have been recognized to seek to trace the paternity of the illegitimate child, so as to make the asserted father the parent under the statute, might well be disposed of by saying that no such contention seems to have been urged in either of the courts below. ”

“ If we examine our terms of relationship, we find that those applied to individual persons and those used in a narrow and well-defined sense are just those in which the family is intimately concerned. The terms father, mother, husband and wife, brother and sister, are limited to members of the family of the speaker, and the terms father-, mother-, brother-, and sister-in-law to the members of the family of the wife or husband in the same narrowly restricted sense. ”

“ Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but proximities. I shall endeavour to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife, —but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. ”

“ As regards minors who have parents or me^ta : parent yet living the law seems plain. Such young per- (a) As re- SOUS can neither engage themselves ^ nor contract a vahd fentof °° marriage,^ without the consent of parents or parent.* parents ; If both parents are Hving the consent of both is required, but in case of difference of opinion between them the will of the father, as the head of the family, prevails over that of the mother.* If the father is dead the mother's consent is necessary, and sufificient,^ even though she has contracted a second marriage. ”

“ 0 height and depth of purity, which fears so much that the children will not know who their fathers are, because, forsooth, they must rely upon their mother's word instead of the hired certification of some priest of the Church, or the Law! I wonder if the children would be improved to know what their fathers have done. I would rather, much rather, not know who my father was than know he had been a tyrant to my mother. I would rather, much rather, be illegitimate according to the statutes of men, than illegitimate according to the unchanging law of Nature. ”

“ The basic principle enunciated in the Court's unwed father cases is that an unwed father who has demonstrated a sufficient commitment to his paternity by way of personal, financial, or custodial responsibilities has a protected liberty interest in a relationship with his child. ”

“ Marriage.—No age is fixed by statute at which minors are capable of contracting marriage.
The parents or guardians must give consent [Pg 159] in writing to the registrar before a license is issued if either party is a minor.
Consanguinity and Affinity.—No man shall marry his mother, grandmother, daughter, granddaughter, sister, aunt, niece, stepmother or stepdaughter; no woman shall marry her father, grandfather, son, grandson, brother, uncle, nephew, stepfather or stepson. All such marriages are declared to be incestuous. ”

“ If the widow remarrying is a minor whose marriage has not been consummated, she shall not remarry without the consent of her father, or, if she has no father, of her paternal grand-father, or, if she has no such grand-father, of her mother, or failing all these, of her elder brother, or, failing also brothers, of her next male relative. ”

“ Philanthropic Tendencies Respect Legal Marriage.—These tendencies, however, are not in the direction, intentionally at least, of making legal condition and status in respect to name, inheritance of family property from a father whose parental relationship is not legally established, and public recognition of parenthood, identical in the case of children born within and without the legal family circle. ”

“ Frequently, however, a man is denied the privilege of taking his step-mother or his mother-in-law to wife, [1460] and in every state of the group, expressly or by implication, [1461] marriage between aunts and nephews, or uncles and nieces, is forbidden. ”

“ The obligation of the father where his paternity has been judicially established in his lifetime or has been acknowledged by him in writing or by the part performance of his obligations is enforceable against his estate in such an amount as the court may determine, having regard to the age of the child, the ability of the mother to support it, the amount of property left by the father, the number, age, and financial condition of the lawful issue, if any, and the rights of the widow, if any. ”

“ A husband has a freehold estate in his wife's lands as long as they both live.
[304]
Money earned by a married woman belongs absolutely to her husband.
By her husband's particular permission, she may make a will; but he may revoke his permission at any time before probate,—that is, before the will is exhibited and proved,—even if after the wife's death.
The custody of a child belongs to the father. The mother has no right of control. The father may dispose of it as he sees fit. ”

“ A series of questions which a group of Chinese students in an American university has drawn up include such as the following: "Where a young girl is brought into the home to be reared as the future bride of the boy in the family, is there any limit to the authority of the mother-in-law?" The mother-in-law in such cases being usually the older or chief-mother, she is really the grandmother-in-law. ”

“ It will be seen from this that the father alone has the absolute legal right to deal with his child or children, to the extent of separating them, at his own sole pleasure, from their mother, and of giving them into the care and custody of any person whom he may think fit. ”

“ From consequents: "If a woman having married a man with whom she had no right of intermarriage, has demanded a divorce, since the children who have been born do not follow their father, the father has no right to keep back any portion of the woman's dowry." ”

“ It is forbidden to contract a second marriage before the dissolution of the first.
A son or a daughter who has not reached the age of twenty-one years cannot contract a marriage without the consent of his or her father and mother. ”

“ In all cases where the paternity of the child is acknowledged openly by the man and with the mother, and guarantees are given that the duties of both parents will be faithfully fulfilled, the child should be legitimized, receive the name of the father, be qualified to inherit from him, and in every way given the same rights as the legitimate child, even if the parents are unable or do not wish to marry. ”