Parental authority

“ The father and mother have joint control of the children, but during the father's lifetime his rule is paramount. When he is dead or incapacitated parental authority remains in the mother's hands. It is her right and duty to care for the child's person, to decide where it shall live, and to superintend its education. ”

“ Here, then, was one of those fatal family quarrels, where the child is forced to disobey parental authority, or to throw herself away into irredeemable wretchedness and ruin. It is certainly a fearful responsibility for a parent to assume of forcing a child to such alternatives. ”

“ The foundation of parental authority lies in the fact that parents hold office as deputies; and that in a two-fold sense. In the first place, they are the immediate and personally appointed deputies of the Almighty King, the sole Ruler of men; they have not only to fulfil his counsels regarding the children, but to represent his Person; his parents are as God to the little child; and, yet more constraining thought, God is to him what his parents are; he has no power to conceive a greater and lovelier personality than that of the royal heads of his own home ”

“ Owing to their possession of parental authority, it is the duty and the right of the parents to exercise the guardianship over their children in every capacity; as the legal representatives of those of their children who are still under age, the parents are competent to act on behalf of and in the name of their children. ”

“ There is no sight more attractive than that of a well ordered family; one in which every child, whether five years old or fifty, submits cheerfully to those rules and regulations which parental authority has thought fit to impose. ”

“ Some of these duties are obviously contingent on the parent's ability; others are absolute and imperative. The judicious parent will, on the one hand, retain his parental authority as long as he is legally responsible for his child; but, on the other hand, will train him gradually to self-help and self-dependence, and will concede to him, as he approaches years of maturity, such freedom of choice and action as is consistent with his permanent well-being. ”

“ Parental authority should be regarded as vicegerent authority, set up by God and ruling in His stead. A parent is to a child what God is to a good man. He is the moral governor of the world of childhood. Parental government is therefore only genuine when it rules for the same ends as God pursues.
When children accord willing obedience the end of family government is gained. To attain this end a parent should be careful to observe the following rules. ”

“ In the modern State, the following ideas as to parental authority are generally prevalent. Parental authority involves duties as well as rights. Our laws give rights to parents only in order to enable them to fulfil their duties. They are, in a sense, plenipotentiaries of the State, entrusted with the duty of bringing up their children in a state of bodily, mental, and moral health, and of ensuring that these children shall develop in such a way that they will be useful to society. ”

“ There may be cases in which the parents are quite blameless, and yet in the interests of the child it may be absolutely necessary to abrogate the parental authority; or, in similar cases, it may be necessary, for educational purposes, to remove the child from its home. ”

“ The considerations on account of which the granting of parental authority to the married mother is regarded as permissible, have no bearing upon the case of the unmarried mother. The interest of the illegitimate child, and, indirectly, the interest of society at large, urgently demand the securest possible guarantees that the child will be properly brought up. ”

“ Duties to Parents.—He should seriously admonish minors subject to parental authority not to marry without the knowledge or against the reasonable wishes of their parents. If the parents are opposed to the marriage, the pastor should decide from the circumstances whether the opposition is justified or not; if one parent only is unwilling, the wishes of the father _per se_ have preference over those of the mother, as he is the head of the family. ”

“ Parental authority in most cases ought to be obeyed by children; but when an undue severity is exercised by parents in attempting to thwart the affections of a son or daughter, and compel the one or the other to violently snap asunder the tenderest ties, then that authority becomes questionable ”

“ The child, on the other hand, ought to remember the rightful authority of his parents, consider their greater experience, take for granted their benignant intention, cultivate a grateful sense of dependence and duty towards them, and foster the habit of prompt and hearty submission to their wishes. It is a safe rule, in general, for a boy or girl to respect and obey the father and mother, and not to think, when they oppose the thoughtless spirit of self-indulgence, that this parental opposition is unreasonable or unkind. ”

“ In addition to all this, we rely exclusively on the State governments for the security of the great rights of life, liberty and property. All the valuable and interesting relations of the social state spring from them. They give validity to the marriage tie; they prescribe the limits of parental authority; they enforce filial duty and obedience; they limit the power of the master, and exact the proper duties of the servant. Their power pervades all the ranks of society, restraining the strong, protecting the weak, succoring the poor, and lifting up the fallen and helpless. ”

“ But now that there has been such a change, especially in the United States, in the constitution of the family, when the child has taken into its own hands that authority which was once the prerogative of the parent, it is time that we should recognize the altered condition of things, and give to the children of the present day that assistance and counsel in the government and judicious training of their parents which was once so freely offered to the latter when their offspring held a subordinate position in the family and household. ”

“ The last duty of parents towards their offspring, is protection, which may be considered principally as a natural obligation; no municipal laws enjoining its observance. But, though a child be thus placed in the power of its parent, the latter cannot abuse such authority. ”

“ The mother who makes her growing-up daughter take the out-of-door exercise she needs, is acting within her powers. The father of quiet habits, who discourages society for his young people, is considering his own tastes, and not their needs, and is making unlawful use of his authority.
Again, the authority of parents, though the deference it begets remains to grace the relations of parents and child, is itself a provisional function, and is only successful as it encourages the autonomy, if we may call it so, of the child. ”

“ It is a grave responsibility to take the parent's place even for a time and with their consent. We ought to feel it an unnatural position, and to endeavour to remedy the evil of it as far as possible by continually referring the child back to the wishes and authority of its father or mother. ”

“ More; parents hold their children in trust for society. “My own child” can only be true in a limited sense; the children are held as a public trust to be trained as is best for the welfare of the community; and in this sense, also, the parents are persons in authority, with the dignity of their office to support, and are even liable to deposition. ”

“ Parents have an undoubted right, nay it is an imperious duty which they owe to their children, to direct their choice with respect to suitable connections, and they have a right to interpose the authority of their advice and recommendation to their children. ”

“ The authority of the parent being thus fully established in regard to all those things which, being of paramount importance in respect to the child's present and future welfare, ought to be regulated by the comparative far-seeing wisdom of the parent, with little regard to the evanescent fancies of the child, it is on every account best, in respect to all other things, to allow to the children the largest possible indulgence. ”

“ Certain newspapers commend the example for our imitation, but God forbid that we should ever lose faith in the blessedness of family life. Parents who hold their children as, at the same time, a public trust and a divine trust, and who recognise the authority they hold as deputed authority, not to be trifled with, laid aside, or abused—such parents preserve for the nation the immunities of home, and safeguard the privileges of their order. ”

“ Consequently, the earlier the physical possibility of becoming a parent in the boy or girl, the more carefully law and education should protect this important parental function from early abuse and ruinous exercise. ”

“ The parents must be the first objects of the child's disciplined reverence. Even here, in this first clear case, the faculty cannot work well without sympathy: and the child must have sympathy from the parents themselves. He must see that his parents respect each other; that they consider one another's authority unquestionable in the household; and that they reverence their parent—if Granny be still among them. ”

“ So long as responsibility for the care and support of children continues to be vested in the parents, so long, for the sake of the child, will it be the duty of society to insist that parents shall not neglect this responsibility. ”

“ The mother does her duty by her children as best she can. The father does his duty by his children. But we do not do our duty by our children. The relation of the State to the child is little thought of, much less understood. We have discussed it only as an alternative to the parental relation, involving the removal of the child from the home and family, and the substitution of civic for domestic care. Such a proposal naturally excites the hot opposition of parental love and instinct, and cannot stand. ”

“ We have had occasion frequently in various parts of this work to point out the intimate relations which exist between the physical and mental nature of parents and their offspring. Like parent, like child. The same close connection and sympathy extends to the moral and religious character; hence that direction and training which relies largely upon the force of parental example is the most effective method of home government. Virtuous precepts, or rigidly enforced rules of conduct, avail little unless the parent keeps the path to which he points the child. ”

“ Having thus considered the rights, duties, and liabilities of parents with respect to the persons, the necessities, and the property of their children, and the corresponding rights and obligations of children with regard to their parents, we must offer a few remarks on the authority of parents over their children, and the extent to which that authority may be delegated to others. ”

“ The education of a child is now largely regulated by statute.
A parent may protect his child, even a homicide is justifiable. A parent can also correct his child. Says an excellent authority: "The rights of parents result from their duties. As they are bound to maintain and educate their children, the law has given them such authority, and, in support of that authority, a right to the exercise of such discipline as may be requisite to the discharge of the sacred trust." See Adopted Child; Husband and Wife. ”

“ Similarly, should the parent too long or too extensively afford protection to the child, exercise authority over him or take over responsibility from him, the child will inevitably find it difficult to acquire the necessary degree of emancipation from the parent's care and jurisdiction ”

“ In fact, the importance and necessity of care and watchfulness in the rearing of children on the part of parents, has been recognized from time immemorial. Among all nations, the parent is expected to instruct, restrain and correct his boy, to the end that he may grow up to be a useful and honest man. And parental control is today, as it always has been, the most important factor in the proper bringing up of children. ”

“ It is conceivable, and perhaps probable, that in many countries the parents will retain and deserve by increased tenderness a great deal of that authority over their children which was anciently given them by law. ”

“ The father, having neither authority, power, responsibility, or charge in his children, is of course, as among brutes, the least attached to his offspring; the mother, by the natural law which renders the infant dependent on her for its first year's nourishment, is more so ”

“ In infancy the authority of the parent is exercised without any reference to the will of the child, because reason is not yet developed. But when he reaches the age of personal accountability, the control of the parent is exercised on more liberal principles; and when, by age, he becomes a responsible citizen, the legal authority of the parent ceases. Still he possesses moral authority, and has a right to exert a restraining influence over the child. ”

“ Hence, the control of parents over children is based solely upon the parents' duty to educate them. This duty of education is established by nature and is guaranteed by the state. To consider the children as property of the parents is absurd. ”