“Every father of a family was despotic in his own household: the emperor was regarded by his subjects with the same reverence that a family looked up to its domestic ruler; and an offence against the monarch was punished in a similar manner as an offence against the parent;” replied Fortyfolios.
“I can imagine no state of things so arbitrary and so contrary to common sense, don’t you see;” observed the doctor. “By such a law, whether a man be a drunkard or a profligate, a fool or a knave, he has unlimited supremacy over his offspring; he can punish with death when he pleases, and the poor wretches who acknowledge his relationship, dare not murmur. He is a father; and fatherhood, like charity, covereth a multitude of sins. There is nothing so ridiculous as this notion. No individual in the great family of nature is entitled to the slightest respect, unless he is respectable in his conduct. All relationship is an accident. A father has no right to the obedience of his child, because he is his father: that can only be the most absurd of claims; for he produced the child to please himself, and at the time could have no sympathy towards an object that was not in existence.”
“That cannot be disputed;” replied the professor. “But I must maintain, that obedience in a child, to a reasonable extent, ought to exist as a natural consequence of the care and anxiety of parentage.”
“Granted, with the limitations;” said the surgeon. “When a father brings up his child with a proper affection, affection from the offspring ought to be expected; but in no case has the parent a right to implicit obedience, unless he has so acted, and the law he wishes to make absolute is such as will not affect the welfare of the child. In many instances the son possesses more intelligence than the father; and yet, if parental subjugation were allowed, the wise must be held in subjection by the opinion of the ignorant.”
“I should imagine such a form of government likely to be very ancient;” observed Oriel.
“It is unquestionably of great antiquity, and derived from the patriarchal ages, when the oldest member of the family held supreme authority over the rest;” responded Fortyfolios.
“About as much as the ocean has originated from the drops of rain that fell from the sky, don’t you see;” added the doctor.
“I maintain that the progenitors of the Chinese were a nomadic race;” said the professor rather sharply.
“Granted; and what then?” inquired the surgeon, in his usual good-humoured manner.
“That they were a collection of single families,” continued Fortyfolios.