Elements of Morals / With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State

by Paul Janet

What is now the principle of this authority? A purely physical reason is given for it; that the child, namely, is in some respect a part of the parents. But this reason is not sufficient; for it would presuppose paternal authority to last all through life under the same conditions and same degree of force; whereas it continues ever diminishing as the child becomes able to govern himself.

The true reason for paternal or maternal authority lies in the feebleness of the child, in its physical, intellectual, and moral incapacity. The child in coming into the world is utterly incapable of doing for itself. Supposing even that it could satisfy its physical wants, experience shows that it could not give itself an education, without which it cannot be truly a man. This state of feebleness requires, then, indispensable assistance, and an assistance of long duration. It needs a hand to support and feed it, a heart to love it, an intelligence to enlighten it. To whom belongs this rôle of educator, protector, sustainer? “There have been some who have wished to take the child from the family to give it to the State; this is a great error; for the child should evidently belong to those without whom he would have no existence. In the first place, it were burdening society with a thing it is not responsible for; moreover, it has no right upon the child, no particular tie existing between them; finally, it offers no sufficient guaranty, and there can be at best expected of it but a vague and general solicitude, if, indeed, the same is not a partial one, and in favor of those from whom it may derive most advantages; whilst parents should unquestionably have charge of the child, since it is through them it exists; and having charge of it, gives them a right to it: and how could they be responsible for this being they have given life to, if they could not in some measure dispose of it? There are three ties between the parents and the child: a physical bond, a heart-bond, a reason-bond: no other authority rests on more natural principles; none is more necessary, none is protected by greater guarantees.”[76]

Not only would the State, in taking possession of the child, encumber itself with functions for the performance of which it is unfitted, but it would also violate the natural rights of the human heart. Parents are, then, invested by nature herself, with the duty of supporting and educating their children. But this duty calls for authority. How could a father and mother direct the child in the path of right and justice; how could they impart to it their wisdom and experience; how could they prepare the way for its becoming in its turn a moral agent—one, namely, that acts and governs himself of his own accord—if they are not at the same time invested with the authority that commands obedience?

Paternal authority, as we see by this, has no other origin than the actual interest of the child: the mission of the parents is to represent it; they have in some respect the government of its life. The whole authority of the father upon the child is, then, limited by the interests and the rights of the child itself. Beyond what may be useful to its physical and moral existence, the father can do nothing. Such are the extent and limits of his authority.

From these principles we deduce:

1. That parents have now no right of life and death upon their children as they have had under certain legislations.

2. That they have neither the right to strike them, maltreat them, wound them—in short, treat them as they would animals or things; and although usage appears to allow certain corporeal punishments, it will always be a bad example and a bad habit to use blows as a means of education.

3. Parents have no right to traffic with the liberty of their sons, to sell them as slaves as in ancient times, or to turn them into instruments of gain, as in many families even to this day. Certainly one could not wholly forbid a father to make a child work toward the support of the family, but it must be done without losing sight of the child’s strength, and without sacrificing its intellectual and moral education.

4. Parents have no right to corrupt their children, by making them accomplices in their own profligacy.

Grotius justly distinguishes three periods in paternal authority:[77] the first, when the children have as yet no discernment, and are not capable of acting with full knowledge; the second, when their judgment, being already ripe, they are still members of the family and have no business of their own; the last, when they have left their father’s house, either to become heads of families themselves, or to enter into another. In the first of these conditions, the will of the parents is entirely substituted for that of the children, and their authority, within the limits above stated, is consequently absolute. In the third case, the son, having reached his majority or maturity, has conquered for himself an independent will; paternal authority must consequently change into moral influence, which a grateful son will respect, but which is no longer, properly so called, an authority. Finally, in the intermediate state, which is the most difficult of all, the paternal will, whilst remaining preponderant, yields more and more to the will of the children, thereby preparing it toward becoming sufficient to itself.