[133] Valerius Maximus, i. 1. 13: “Pari vindicta parentum ac deorum violatio expianda est.” Servius, In Virgilii Georgicon, ii. 473: “Sacra deorum sancta apud illos sunt, sancti etiam parentes.”
It has been suggested by Sir Henry Maine and others that the patria potestas of the Romans was a survival of the paternal authority which existed among the primitive Aryans.[134] But no clear evidence of the general prevalence of such unlimited authority among other so-called Aryan peoples has been adduced. The ancient jurist observed, “The power which we have over our children is peculiar to Roman citizens; for there are no other nations possessing the same power over their children as we have over ours.”[135] That among the Greeks and Teutons the father had the right to expose his children in their infancy, to sell them, in case of urgency, as long as they remained in his power,[136] and to give away his daughters in marriage,[137] does not imply the possession of a sovereignty like that which the Roman house-father exercised over his descendants of all ages. In Greece[138] and among all the Teutonic nations[139] the father’s authority over his sons came to an end when the son grew up and left his home. But here again we must distinguish between the legal rights of parents and the duties of children. There are numerous passages in the Greek writings which put filial piety on a par with the duties towards the gods.[140]
[134] Maine, Ancient Law, p. 138. Fustel de Coulanges, La cité antique, p. 96 sqq. Hearn, Aryan Household, p. 92.
[135] Institutiones, i. 9. 2.
[136] Leist, Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte, p. 60 sq. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 461 sq. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, i. 76. In France the parents’ right of selling their children gradually disappeared under the kings of the third race (de Laurière, in Loysel, Institutes coutumières, i. 82).
[137] Westermarck, op. cit. p. 232 sqq.
[138] Leist, Græco-italische Rechtsgeschichte, p. 62 sq. Cauvet, ‘De l’organisation de la famille à Athènes,’ in Revue de législation, xxiv. 138.
[139] Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 462. Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, i. 75 sq.
[140] Schmidt, Ethik der alten Griechen, ii. 141 sq.
Nor is there any evidence that the patria potestas of the Roman type ever prevailed in full in India, great though the father’s or parent’s authority has been, and still is, among the Hindus.[141] Among the Vedic people the father seems to have been the head of the family only as long as he was able to be its protector and maintainer,[142] decrepit parents being even allowed to die of starvation.[143] According to some sacred books from a later age, the father and the mother have power to give, to sell, and to abandon their son, because “man formed of uterine blood and virile seed proceeds from his mother and his father as an effect from its cause”; however, an only son may not be given or received in adoption, nor is a woman allowed to give or receive a son except with her husband’s permission.[144] In other books it is said that “the gift or acceptance of a child and the right to sell or buy a child are not recognised,”[145] and that he who casts off his son—unless the son be guilty of a crime causing loss of caste—shall be fined by the king six hundred panas.[146] But whatever be the legal rights of a parent, filial piety is a most stringent duty in the child.[147] A man has three Atigurus, or specially venerable superiors: his father, mother, and spiritual teacher. To them he must always pay obedience. He must do what is agreeable and serviceable to them. He must never do anything without their leave.[148] “By honouring these three all that ought to be done by man is accomplished; that is clearly the highest duty, every other act is a subordinate duty.”[149] Similar feelings prevail among the modern Hindus.[150] Sir W. H. Sleeman observes, “There is no part of the world, I believe, where parents are so much reverenced by their sons as they are in India in all classes of society.” The duty of daughters is from the day of their marriage transferred entirely to their husbands and their husbands’ parents, but between the son and his parents the reciprocity of rights and duties which have bound together the parent and child from infancy follows them to the grave. The sons are often actually tyrannised over by their mothers.[151]