Patrilineality

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If we compare the Natural Rights of a Father with those of a King, we find them all one, without any difference at all but only in the Latitude or Extent of them: as the Father over one Family, so the King as Father over many Families extends his care to preserve, feed, cloth, instruct and defend the whole Commonwealth. His War, his Peace, his Courts of Justice, and all his Acts of Sovereignty tend only to preserve and distribute to every subordinate and inferiour Father, and to their Children, their Rights and Privileges ”

“ Now when a father that hath children, hath servants also, the children, not by the right of the child, but by the natural indulgence of the parents, are such freemen. And the whole, consisting of the father or mother, or both, and of the children, and of the servants, is called a family, wherein the father or mother of the family is sovereign of the same, and the rest, both children and servants equally, subjects. ”

“ And here, perhaps, better than elsewhere, may be noted the fact that the phrase "thy son," used to a ruler, or superior, or other person, is originally equivalent to "thy servant." When we remember that in the rudest societies children exist only on sufferance of their parents, and that in patriarchal groups, whence the civilized societies of Europe have descended, the father had life and death power over his children, we see that professing to be another's son was like professing to be his servant or slave. ”

“ Thirty years we have been beneath the opportunities and duties of free manhood, which is to say that for thirty years we have been associated with the family institution as husband, as wife, as parent, as sister, as brother, as son, and as daughter. ”

“ In this way the patriarchal organization of society can easily grow into hereditary monarchy, in which the king is as a god on earth, and the masses of the people mere slaves of his caprice. It is natural that the father should be the directing head of the family, and that at his death the eldest son, as the oldest and most experienced member of the little community, should succeed to the headship. ”

“ The rule is based upon the right of procreation: since there is no individual fatherhood, all have only one father—the tyrant whose sons and daughters they all are, and to whom all the property belongs. ”

“ And yet it was these austere patriarchs who, in the midst of their chaste and obedient families, thanks to their pride, their cultivation of right, and their noble self-respect, laid the foundation of the future. ”

“ But, gentlemen, there is no alternative. The glove is thrown to us, and we must accept it. If our principles are right, and we believe they are, we would be unworthy of our noble paternity if we were to shrink from the issue. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Each child of us, though really born to the broad light of a democratic age, is reared in the patriarchate. Each child of us sees the father, dispenser of benefits, arbiter and ruler of the family; and, so reared, each child of us repeats from generation to generation the mistakes of personality. ”

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

“ I claim the parents’ right, of either sex, To reign before their children. Out on laws Which make a child usurp its Mother’s place, Or, if a female be an elder child, Ousts her from heirship on account of sex! Imbecile law! Worthy of priestly craft, Worthy of Superstition and Saint Saul, Of men bedridden with such mistresses As are these soulless and unnatural laws. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The custom, or laws, being altogether in favour of equality of rights between the parents, the children do not repine when they find that they stand in the same relation of dependence to their mother, that they did to their father ”

“ All the larger groups which make up the primitive societies in which the Patriarchal family occurs, are seen to be mere multiplications of it, and to be, in fact, themselves palpably formed on its model. ”

“ But as a general rule, the father of a family, if left to himself and not biassed by any special institutions of his country, is most likely to make that distribution among his children which is most for the public good. If family pride moves him to endow one son more largely than the rest, in order to maintain the honour of his name, family affection will keep this tendency within limits in the interest of the other children, unless the institutions of his country favour the one tendency as against the other. ”

“ The authority of the father is domestic, not political, and ceases when his children have attained to majority, have married and become heads of families themselves, or have ceased to make part of the paternal household. ”

“ Among peoples who have reached a relatively high degree of civilization the father’s power, in connection with a more fully developed system of ancestor-worship, has invariably become more extensive, more absolute. Not only the full-grown daughter, but the full-grown son, who among savages enjoys perfect independence, stands so much in awe of the father that, among many of these peoples, no marriage is concluded without his consent. ”

“ Where establishment of descent in the male line has initiated the patriarchal family, the name father, even in its original meaning, comes to be associated with supreme authority, and to be therefore a name of honor. ”

“ It is only since the eighteenth century and the spread of the theory of equality that the father of a family, in especial in France, has ceased to consider himself as a sort of irresponsible sovereign, and begun to treat his wife in some sort as his equal and to exercise over his children no more than the minimum of possible authority. ”

“ In the displacement of the father-regarding feelings on to Father-regarding tendencies the state, the tendencies connected with the attitude of respect, obedience and loyalty to the paternal authority are usually the most prominent. Great importance is moreover almost invariably attached to the head of the state as its embodiment and its supreme authority, the country over which he rules being looked upon as his possession or estate, which it is the duty of his children to uphold, to protect or to enlarge. ”

“ In the case of private individuals, noble birth is derived from either the father's or the mother's side, and on both sides there must be legitimacy; and, as in the case of a State, it means that its founders were distinguished for virtue, or wealth, or any other of the things that men honor, and that a number of famous persons, both men and women, young and old, belong to 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. ”

“ With the solidification of society, of property, the bond of family has been tremendously exalted, the mere fact of parenthood declared the last sanctity. Together with this, naturally, the persistent errantry of men, so vulgarly misunderstood, has become only a reprehensible paradox. ”

“ It is urged, then, that in the Swan-Maid group the father is either unmentioned or subordinate, the wife or mother is supreme, the family and not the father consent to or refuse the marriage, the hero is, as a rule, a fatherless child. ”

“ Every father of a family, in the normal and healthy state of society, is his own priest as well as his own king. In religion and morals, as well as in all domestic ordinances, he is absolute and supreme; and the functions which necessarily belonged to him as supreme administrator in his own family would, under the influence of family feelings, naturally be conceded to him when the family grew to a clan, and the clan to a kingdom. ”

“ But even so, who can replace the love of a husband and a father?' Thus your father reasoned and by this strict standard of conduct regulated all his actions, so that it can be said that he never injured anybody. ”

“ And what will become of this paternal power in that part of the world, where one woman hath more than one husband at a time? or in those parts of America, where, when the husband and wife part, which happens frequently, the children are all left to the mother, follow her, and are wholly under her care and provision? ”

“ Under this patriarchal system the father has had absolute power over all his children. The sons escape by entering upon their own lifework, but the daughters never escape. When they marry they pass under the control of their husband's family. ”

“ With marriage, comes changes to the system. The married person demands order, security and peace—to live as a family in a family—in a regulated household—he seeks a true monarchy.
51. A prince without family spirit is not a monarch. ”

“ Why papa and mamma kiss the children, and the children kiss papa and mamma, and this will not do, it is not civilization. Kick, cuff and scold from morning to night must be the story, "then we are ready to receive you?" ”

“ But a paternalism must have a parent, a royal sire, or a priestly grandmother. In the antique paternalisms there is invariably this parental personality at the top; down beneath it are the puppet children. ”

“ Just as many aunts and uncles, and some papas and mammas, too, are occasionally criticised by those younger members of the family who are prone to be very caustic as to the mode certain burdens are borne, the weight of which has never distressed their own shoulders. And this, not from any deficiency of affection, but simply through a habit which, in the levity of our day, has become popular, and taught us to think little of the ties of parentage, and call a father a Governor. ”

“ His dominion extends to life and death, and is as unqualified over his children and their houses as over his slaves; indeed the relations of sonship and serfdom appear to differ in little beyond the higher which the child in blood possesses of becoming one day the head of a family himself. ”

“ It is easy then to understand for what reason, in times in which the family performed so many social offices and was the pivot of so many interests, marriage was not considered as an act to be left to the full discretion of the young and to their love, and why the fathers were conceded the right to decide for themselves in such matters. ”

“ While, therefore, the moral discipline which came to the mother in the old order of the family, led her to understand the value of personality, and the need of ever-increasing effort to make the individual lives within the family circle comfortable, happy and good, the moral discipline of the patriarchal father led toward an increasing conquest of nature, of other men, and of all the social forces, in the interest of his own family group. ”

“ 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. ”