Paternalism

“ The lessons of paternalism ought to be unlearned and the better lesson taught that while the people should patriotically and cheerfully support their Government its functions do not include the support of the people. ”

“ His rights are measured to him by the theory of liberty—that is, he has only such as he can conquer; his duties are measured to him on the paternal theory—that is, he must discharge all which are laid upon him, as is the fortune of parents. In a paternal relation there are always two parties, a father and a child; and when we use the paternal relation metaphorically, it is of the first importance to know who is to be father and who is to be child. The rôle of parent falls always to the Forgotten Man. ”

“ Why should a conception of Kinship, so elastic as to include strangers brought into the family by adoption, be nevertheless so narrow as to shut out the descendants of a female member? To solve these questions, we must recur to the Patria Potestas. The foundation of Agnation is not the marriage of Father and Mother, but the authority of the Father. All persons are Agnatically connected together who are under the same Paternal Power, or who have been under it, or who might have been under it if their lineal ancestor had lived long enough to exercise his empire. ”

“ When the wife becomes pregnant, the eldest brother performs the ceremony of giving the bow and arrow, but the brothers are all equally regarded as the fathers of the child. If one of the brothers leaves the rest and sets up an establishment of his own, it appeared, however, that he might lose his right to be regarded as the father of the children.
If a man is asked the name of his father, he usually gives the name of one man only, even when he is the offspring of a polyandrous marriage. ”

“ And those men who either persuade or enforce the doing of it, stand towards those who are rebellious against it exactly in the position of faithful children in a family, who, when the father is out of sight, either compel or persuade the rest to do as their father would have them, were he present; and in so far as they are expressing and maintaining, for the time, the paternal authority, they exercise, in the exact sense in which I mean the phrase to be understood, paternal government over the rest. ”

“ I have seen some young and promising lives wrecked by parental insistence that one or another calling be adopted. That a father is in a calling or occupation is a quite insufficient reason for a son being constrained to make it his own. A man or woman in the last analysis has the right of choice in the matter of calling, and parents have no more right to choose a calling [Pg 67] than to choose a wife or husband for a son or daughter.
A most fertile cause of conflict is at hand in the normal determination of parents to transmit the faith of the fathers to the children. ”

“ Paternity may be a legal fiction. Who is the father of any son that any son should love him or he any son? ”

“ And tho' the mother should be possest of superior qualities to the father, as often happens, the general rule prevails, notwithstanding the exception, according to the doctrine, which shall be explained afterwards. Nay, even when a superiority of any kind is so great, or when any other reasons have such an effect, as to make the children rather represent the mother's family than the father's, the general rule still retains an efficacy, sufficient to weaken the relation, and make a kind of breach in the line of ancestors. ”

“ I cannot enter into this question now, and will only state my belief that a child belongs by natural right to both its parents. The primitive form of the matriarchal family, which we shall study later, is realised in its most exaggerated form by the bees and ants. In human societies we find only imitations of this system. And here, again, there is a [63] lesson necessary for us to remember. Any ideal that takes the father from the child, and the child from its father, giving it only to the mother, is a step backward and not forward. ”

“ Thus, a man will not only apply the term “father” to all the brothers of his father, to all the sons’ sons of his father’s father, and to all the sons’ sons’ sons of his father’s father’s father, to all the husbands of his mother’s sisters and of his mother’s mother’s granddaughters, etc., but he will also apply the term to all the members of his father’s clan of the same generation as his father and to all the husbands of the women of the mother’s clan of the same generation as the mother, even when it is quite impossible to show any genealogical relationship with them. ”

“ You surely must by this time have seen for yourself that he has his own habits and his own ways, and that he makes, more and more—as of course he has a perfect right to do—his own discriminations. He’s so perfect, so ideal a father, and, doubtless largely by that very fact, a generous, a comfortable, an admirable father-in-law, that I should really feel it base to avail myself of any standpoint whatever to criticise him. ”

“ The son that would take the deepest interest—that would devote himself the most faithfully to promote the designs of the father and head of that family, for the happiness and prosperity of the whole, would increase in power and influence faster than any other one; for the father would be disposed to put as much power and influence into his hands as it would be possible for him to receive, and as would be for the benefit of the family. ”

“ The habits of the “much-married” primitive men made mistake about any one’s mother less likely than mistake about his father; and, if in civilised times it is, as the saying goes, a wise child that knows its own father, he was, in barbarous times, a wise father who knew his own child. Examples tracing the kinship through females, father and offspring being never of the same clan, abound in both ancient and modern authorities, and perhaps the most amusing one that can be given is found in Dr. ”

“ The widespread custom of naming a father after his child has sometimes been supposed to spring from a desire on the father's part to assert his paternity, apparently as a means of obtaining those rights over his children which had previously, under a system of mother-kin, been possessed by the mother. ”

“ Younger sons, at the time of their marriage, or at other important periods of life, receive paternal gifts, now more, now less, according to usage, rank, the family fortune, etc., but the bulk of the property belongs to the oldest son, on whom the younger sons look as their father. ”

“ We shall expect some sanctity to attach to the idea of paternity, some thought and care to be given beforehand to the duties of motherhood. We will not admit that the chance union of two unfit persons, who ought never to have made themselves parents at all, or ought never to have made themselves parents with one another, can be rendered holy and harmless by the hands of a priest extended to bless a bought love, or a bargain of impure marriage. In one word, for the first time in the history of the race, we shall evolve the totally new idea of responsibility in parentage. ”

“ And with this affection will grow, according to the immutable law, that the more man gives, the more he loves.
If matriarchy, in a new form, refined by the whole of development, should become the final phase—as in the opinion of many it has been the starting-point—of the family, then this would involve that paternal authority became conditional, depending on the value and warmth of the paternal feeling. At present many fathers are merely an accident in their children’s life, an accident which never even looks “like an idea.” ”

“ But this relation of interdependence is not only for the well-being of the offspring, but for the highest physical, intellectual and moral development and well-being of both parents. Parenthood comes not only to the mother, molding, fashioning and perfecting her in every department of her being, but when intelligently and reverently assumed, when discharged with fidelity and self-denial, it has its priceless endowments for the father as well. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We are further taught by the Lord, that "for this cause," that is, because we were created male and female, "shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife;" which shows us that the conjugial relation is to endure when the parental, or the tie that binds parent to child, has ceased to exist. ”

“ But in process of time, when fathers had ceased to regard the birth of a son as a menace to their life, or at least to their regal power, kings would naturally scheme to secure the succession for their own male offspring, and this new practice could be reconciled with the old one by marrying the king's son either to his own sister or, after his father's decease, to his stepmother. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A daughter becoming on marriage a part of her husband’s family ceases to be a member of her own, and her descendants are no benefit to it, unless, perchance, having no brothers, one of her sons is adopted by her father. ”

“ If a man takes a young child in his name unto sonship and brings him up, one may not bring a claim for that adopted son.
§ 186. If a man takes a young child unto sonship, and when he has taken him he rebels against his [adopted] father and mother, that foster-child shall return to his father’s house.
§ 187. One may not bring claim for the son of a temple-servant, a palace guard, or of a sacred harlot.
§ 188. If an artisan takes a son to sonship and teaches him his handicraft, one may not bring claim for him. ”

“ Body o' me, he shall be thy father, I'll make him thy father, and thou shalt make me a father, and I'll make thee a mother, and we'll beget sons and daughters enough to put the weekly bills out of countenance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the parent owns him,—mind, body, and soul, we must adopt one line of argument; if, as a human being, he owns himself, we must adopt another. In my thought the parent is simply a divinely appointed guardian, who acts for his child until he attains what we call the age of discretion,—that highly uncertain period which arrives very late in life with some persons, and not at all with others. ”

“ Like the prodigal son, he no sooner abandons his father than he begins to associate and feed with the swine, and regains his manhood — his dignity as son and heir — only when he forms and carries out his resolution to arise and go to his father. ”

“ It is a fact that in some countries the father has to purchase the child from its mother; and in the Roman ceremony of the husband raising the baby from the floor we may trace the savage idea that the male parent must formally proclaim his adoption of and responsibility for the offspring. ”

“ It is hardly possible to be mistaken in taking this fight to be a ceremonial, if playful, assertion of the claim of the mother's kinsfolk to the child as one of themselves, and the father's payment to be the quieting of their claim and the securing of his own position as head of his own family. ”

“ Absoluteness of the paternal power over the family It is customary to say that the father had absolute power over his children, but it is better to state only what is known with certainty regarding the extent of his power. The father could treat his child, or even his wife, equally with a slave, as a chattel to be pledged for his debts.351 We may therefore conclude that he could sell his child. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In cases where the marriage rites have not been duly completed before a child is born, provided the couple might otherwise marry, the father is often required to acknowledge formally the paternity of the child, which is then allowed to live. ”

“ In that case, it will frequently be apparent that the heart of a father or mother was stronger, their soul greater than either child or parents had believed before the test was made. If, on the other hand, it should prove that the faults and prejudices of the parents were the sole cause of the conflict, then these faults and prejudices are not entitled to any more respect because they are those of a father or mother. ”

“ The sacred rights of paternity are never violated in the East: there a son, whatever may be his age or condition, never sits in the presence of his father; but his movements and whole demeanour are marked with filial submission. ”

“ Today's plurality, however, does not ask whether parenthood is an interest that historically has received our attention and protection; the answer to that question is too clear for dispute. Instead, the plurality asks whether the specific variety of parenthood under consideration-a natural father's relationship with a child whose mother is married to another man-has enjoyed such protection. ”

“ But what are we to say of some mothers who, seeing the impotence of their sons-in-law, or that they have the string knotted or some other defect, are procuresses to their own daughters. Thus to win their jointures, they get them to yield to others, and often to become with child by them, to the end they may have offspring to inherit after the death of the father. ”