help to the weakness and imperfection of their nonage, a discipline
necessary to their education: and though a father may dispose of his own
possessions as he pleases, when his children are out of danger of
perishing for want, yet his power extends not to the lives or goods,
which either their own industry, or another's bounty has made their's;
nor to their liberty neither, when they are once arrived to the
infranchisement of the years of discretion. The father's empire then
ceases, and he can from thence forwards no more dispose of the liberty
of his son, than that of any other man: and it must be far from an
absolute or perpetual jurisdiction, from which a man may withdraw
himself, having license from divine authority to leave father and
mother, and cleave to his wife.
Sect. 66. But though there be a time when a child comes to be as free
from subjection to the will and command of his father, as the father
himself is free from subjection to the will of any body else, and they
are each under no other restraint, but that which is common to them
both, whether it be the law of nature, or municipal law of their
country; yet this freedom exempts not a son from that honour which he
ought, by the law of God and nature, to pay his parents.
God having made
the parents instruments in his great design of continuing the race of
mankind, and the occasions of life to their children; as he hath laid on
them an obligation to nourish, preserve, and bring up their offspring;
so he has laid on the children a perpetual obligation of honouring their
parents, which containing in it an inward esteem and reverence to be
shewn by all outward expressions, ties up the child from any thing that
may ever injure or affront, disturb or endanger, the happiness or life
of those from whom he received his; and engages him in all actions of
defence, relief, assistance and comfort of those, by whose means he
entered into being, and has been made capable of any enjoyments of life:
from this obligation no state, no freedom can absolve children. But this
is very far from giving parents a power of command over their children,
or an authority to make laws and dispose as they please of their lives
or liberties. It is one thing to owe honour, respect, gratitude and
assistance; another to require an absolute obedience and submission. The
honour due to parents, a monarch in his throne owes his mother; and yet
this lessens not his authority, nor subjects him to her government.
Sect. 67. The subjection of a minor places in the father a temporary
government, which terminates with the minority of the child: and the
honour due from a child, places in the parents a perpetual right to
respect, reverence, support and compliance too, more or less, as the
father's care, cost, and kindness in his education, has been more or
less. This ends not with minority, but holds in all parts and conditions
of a man's life. The want of distinguishing these two powers, viz. that
which the father hath in the right of tuition, during minority, and the
right of honour all his life, may perhaps have caused a great part of
the mistakes about this matter: for to speak properly of them, the first
of these is rather the privilege of children, and duty of parents, than
any prerogative of paternal power. The nourishment and education of
their children is a charge so incumbent on parents for their children's
good, that nothing can absolve them from taking care of it: and though
the power of commanding and chastising them go along with it, yet God
hath woven into the principles of human nature such a tenderness for
their off-spring, that there is little fear that parents should use
their power with too much rigour; the excess is seldom on the severe
side, the strong byass of nature drawing the other way.
And therefore
God almighty when he would express his gentle dealing with the
Israelites, he tells them, that though he chastened them, he chastened
them as a man chastens his son, Deut. viii. 5. i.e. with tenderness and
affection, and kept them under no severer discipline than what was
absolutely best for them, and had been less kindness to have slackened.
This is that power to which children are commanded obedience, that the
pains and care of their parents may not be increased, or ill rewarded.
Sect. 68. On the other side, honour and support, all that which
gratitude requires to return for the benefits received by and from them,
is the indispensable duty of the child, and the proper privilege of the
parents. This is intended for the parents advantage, as the other is for
the child's; though education, the parents duty, seems to have most
power, because the ignorance and infirmities of childhood stand in need
of restraint and correction; which is a visible exercise of rule, and a
kind of dominion. And that duty which is comprehended in the word
honour, requires less obedience, though the obligation be stronger on
grown, than younger children: for who can think the command, Children
obey your parents, requires in a man, that has children of his own, the
same submission to his father, as it does in his yet young children to
him; and that by this precept he were bound to obey all his father's
commands, if, out of a conceit of authority, he should have the
indiscretion to treat him still as a boy?
Sect. 69. The first part then of paternal power, or rather duty, which
is education, belongs so to the father, that it terminates at a certain
season; when the business of education is over, it ceases of itself, and
is also alienable before: for a man may put the tuition of his son in
other hands; and he that has made his son an apprentice to another, has
discharged him, during that time, of a great part of his obedience both
to himself and to his mother. But all the duty of honour, the other
part, remains never the less entire to them; nothing can cancel that: it
is so inseparable from them both, that the father's authority cannot
dispossess the mother of this right, nor can any man discharge his son
from honouring her that bore him. But both these are very far from a
power to make laws, and enforcing them with penalties, that may reach
estate, liberty, limbs and life. The power of commanding ends with
nonage; and though, after that, honour and respect, support and defence,
and whatsoever gratitude can oblige a man to, for the highest benefits
he is naturally capable of, be always due from a son to his parents; yet
all this puts no scepter into the father's hand, no sovereign power of
commanding. He has no dominion over his son's property, or actions; nor
any right, that his will should prescribe to his son's in all things;
however it may become his son in many things, not very inconvenient to
him and his family, to pay a deference to it.
Sect. 70. A man may owe honour and respect to an ancient, or wise man;
defence to his child or friend; relief and support to the distressed;
and gratitude to a benefactor, to such a degree, that all he has, all he
can do, cannot sufficiently pay it: but all these give no authority, no
right to any one, of making laws over him from whom they are owing. And
it is plain, all this is due not only to the bare title of father; not
only because, as has been said, it is owing to the mother too; but
because these obligations to parents, and the degrees of what is
required of children, may be varied by the different care and kindness,
trouble and expence, which is often employed upon one child more than
another.
Sect. 71. This shews the reason how it comes to pass, that parents in
societies, where they themselves are subjects, retain a power over their
children, and have as much right to their subjection, as those who are
in the state of nature. Which could not possibly be, if all political
power were only paternal, and that in truth they were one and the same
thing: for then, all paternal power being in the prince, the subject
could naturally have none of it. But these two powers, political and
paternal, are so perfectly distinct and separate; are built upon so
different foundations, and given to so different ends, that every
subject that is a father, has as much a paternal power over his
children, as the prince has over his: and every prince, that has
parents, owes them as much filial duty and obedience, as the meanest of
his subjects do to their's; and can therefore contain not any part or
degree of that kind of dominion, which a prince or magistrate has over
his subject.
Sect. 72. Though the obligation on the parents to bring up their
children, and the obligation on children to honour their parents,
contain all the power on the one hand, and submission on the other,
which are proper to this relation, yet there is another power ordinarily
in the father, whereby he has a tie on the obedience of his children;
which tho' it be common to him with other men, yet the occasions of
shewing it, almost consich tho' it be common to him with other men, yet
the occasions of shewing it, almost constantly happening to fathers in
their private families, and the instances of it elsewhere being rare,
and less taken notice of, it passes in the world for a part of paternal
jurisdiction. And this is the power men generally have to bestow their
estates on those who please them best; the possession of the father
being the expectation and inheritance of the children, ordinarily in
certain proportions, according to the law and custom of each country;
yet it is commonly in the father's power to bestow it with a more
sparing or liberal hand, according as the behaviour of this or that
child hath comported with his will and humour.
Sect. 73. This is no small tie on the obedience of children: and there
being always annexed to the enjoyment of land, a submission to the
government of the country, of which that land is a part; it has been
commonly supposed, that a father could oblige his posterity to that
government, of which he himself was a subject, and that his compact held
them; whereas, it being only a necessary condition annexed to the land,
and the inheritance of an estate which is under that government, reaches
only those who will take it on that condition, and so is no natural tie
or engagement, but a voluntary submission: for every man's children
being by nature as free as himself, or any of his ancestors ever were,
may, whilst they are in that freedom, choose what society they will join
themselves to, what commonwealth they will put themselves under. But if
they will enjoy the inheritance of their ancestors, they must take it on
the same terms their ancestors had it, and submit to all the conditions
annexed to such a possession. By this power indeed fathers oblige their
children to obedience to themselves, even when they are past minority,
and most commonly too subject them to this or that political power: but
neither of these by any peculiar right of fatherhood, but by the reward
they have in their hands to inforce and recompence such a compliance;
and is no more power than what a French man has over an English man, who
by the hopes of an estate he will leave him, will certainly have a
strong tie on his obedience: and if, when it is left him, he will enjoy
it, he must certainly take it upon the conditions annexed to the
possession of land in that country where it lies, whether it be France
or England.
Sect. 74. To conclude then, tho' the father's power of commanding
extends no farther than the minority of his children, and to a degree
only fit for the discipline and government of that age; and tho' that
honour and respect, and all that which the Latins called piety, which
they indispensably owe to their parents all their lifetime, and in all
estates, with all that support and defence is due to them, gives the
father no power of governing, i.e. making laws and enacting penalties on
his children; though by all this he has no dominion over the property or
actions of his son: yet it is obvious to conceive how easy it was, in
the first ages of the world, and in places still, where the thinness of
people gives families leave to separate into unpossessed quarters, and
they have room to remove or plant themselves in yet vacant habitations,
for the father of the family to become the prince of it;* he had been a
ruler from the beginning of the infancy of his children: and since
without some government it would be hard for them to live together, it
was likeliest it should, by the express or tacit consent of the children
when they were grown up, be in the father, where it seemed without any
change barely to continue; when indeed nothing more was required to it,
than the permitting the father to exercise alone, in his family, that
executive power of the law of nature, which every free man naturally
hath, and by that permission resigning up to him a monarchical power,
whilst they remained in it. But that this was not by any paternal right,
but only by the consent of his children, is evident from hence, that no
body doubts, but if a stranger, whom chance or business had brought to
his family, had there killed any of his children, or committed any other
fact, he might condemn and put him to death, or otherwise have punished
him, as well as any of his children; which it was impossible he should
do by virtue of any paternal authority over one who was not his child,
but by virtue of that executive power of the law of nature, which, as a
man, he had a right to: and he alone could punish him in his family,
where the respect of his children had laid by the exercise of such a
power, to give way to the dignity and authority they were willing should
remain in him, above the rest of his family.
(*It is no improbable opinion therefore, which the archphilosopher was
of, that the chief person in every houshold was always, as it were, a
king: so when numbers of housholds joined themselves in civil societies
together, kings were the first kind of governors amongst them, which is
also, as it seemeth, the reason why the name of fathers continued still
in them, who, of fathers, were made rulers; as also the ancient custom
of governors to do as Melchizedec, and being kings, to exercise the
office of priests, which fathers did at the first, grew perhaps by the
same occasion. Howbeit, this is not the only kind of regiment that has
been received in the world. The inconveniences of one kind have caused
sundry others to be devised; so that in a word, all public regiment, of
what kind soever, seemeth evidently to have risen from the deliberate
advice, consultation and composition between men, judging it convenient
and behoveful; there being no impossibility in nature considered by
itself, but that man might have lived without any public regiment,
Hooker's Eccl. Pol. lib. i. sect. 10.) Sect. 75. Thus it was easy, and almost natural for children, by a tacit,
and scarce avoidable consent, to make way for the father's authority and
government. They had been accustomed in their childhood to follow his
direction, and to refer their little differences to him, and when they
were men, who fitter to rule them? Their little properties, and less
covetousness, seldom afforded greater controversies; and when any should
arise, where could they have a fitter umpire than he, by whose care they
had every one been sustained and brought up, and who had a tenderness
for them all? It is no wonder that they made no distinction betwixt
minority and full age; nor looked after one and twenty, or any other age
that might make them the free disposers of themselves and fortunes, when
they could have no desire to be out of their pupilage: the government
they had been under, during it, continued still to be more their
protection than restraint; and they could no where find a greater
security to their peace, liberties, and fortunes, than in the rule of a
father.
Sect. 76. Thus the natural fathers of families, by an insensible change,
became the politic monarchs of them too: and as they chanced to live
long, and leave able and worthy heirs, for several successions, or
otherwise; so they laid the foundations of hereditary, or elective
kingdoms, under several constitutions and mannors, according as chance,
contrivance, or occasions happened to mould them. But if princes have
their titles in their fathers right, and it be a sufficient proof of the
natural right of fathers to political authority, because they commonly
were those in whose hands we find, de facto, the exercise of government:
I say, if this argument be good, it will as strongly prove, that all
princes, nay princes only, ought to be priests, since it is as certain,
that in the beginning, the father of the family was priest, as that he
was ruler in his own houshold.
CHAPTER. VII.
OF POLITICAL OR CIVIL SOCIETY.
Sect. 77. GOD having made man such a creature, that in his own judgment,
it was not good for him to be alone, put him under strong obligations of
necessity, convenience, and inclination to drive him into society, as
well as fitted him with understanding and language to continue and enjoy
it. The first society was between man and wife, which gave beginning to
that between parents and children; to which, in time, that between
master and servant came to be added: and though all these might, and
commonly did meet together, and make up but one family, wherein the
master or mistress of it had some sort of rule proper to a family; each
of these, or all together, came short of political society, as we shall
see, if we consider the different ends, ties, and bounds of each of
these.
Sect. 78. Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man
and woman; and tho' it consist chiefly in such a communion and right in
one another's bodies as is necessary to its chief end, procreation; yet
it draws with it mutual support and assistance, and a communion of
interests too, as necessary not only to unite their care and affection,
but also necessary to their common off-spring, who have a right to be
nourished, and maintained by them, till they are able to provide for
themselves.
Sect. 79. For the end of conjunction, between male and female, being not
barely procreation, but the continuation of the species; this
conjunction betwixt male and female ought to last, even after
procreation, so long as is necessary to the nourishment and support of
the young ones, who are to be sustained even after procreation, so long
as is necessary to the nourishment and support of the young ones, who
are to be sustained by those that got them, till they are able to shift
and provide for themselves. This rule, which the infinite wise maker
hath set to the works of his hands, we find the inferior creatures
steadily obey. In those viviparous animals which feed on grass, the
conjunction between male and female lasts no longer than the very act of
copulation; because the teat of the dam being sufficient to nourish the
young, till it be able to feed on grass, the male only begets, but
concerns not himself for the female or young, to whose sustenance he can
contribute nothing. But in beasts of prey the conjunction lasts longer:
because the dam not being able well to subsist herself, and nourish her
numerous off-spring by her own prey alone, a more laborious, as well as
more dangerous way of living, than by feeding on grass, the assistance
of the male is necessary to the maintenance of their common family,
which cannot subsist till they are able to prey for themselves, but by
the joint care of male and female. The same is to be observed in all
birds, (except some domestic ones, where plenty of food excuses the cock
from feeding, and taking care of the young brood) whose young needing
food in the nest, the cock and hen continue mates, till the young are
able to use their wing, and provide for themselves.
Sect. 80. And herein I think lies the chief, if not the only reason, why
the male and female in mankind are tied to a longer conjunction than
other creatures, viz. because the female is capable of conceiving, and
de facto is commonly with child again, and brings forth too a new birth,
long before the former is out of a dependency for support on his parents
help, and able to shift for himself, and has all the assistance is due
to him from his parents: whereby the father, who is bound to take care
for those he hath begot, is under an obligation to continue in conjugal
society with the same woman longer than other creatures, whose young
being able to subsist of themselves, before the time of procreation
returns again, the conjugal bond dissolves of itself, and they are at
liberty, till Hymen at his usual anniversary season summons them again
to chuse new mates. Wherein one cannot but admire the wisdom of the
great Creator, who having given to man foresight, and an ability to lay
up for the future, as well as to supply the present necessity, hath made
it necessary, that society of man and wife should be more lasting, than
of male and female amongst other creatures; that so their industry might
be encouraged, and their interest better united, to make provision and
lay up goods for their common issue, which uncertain mixture, or easy
and frequent solutions of conjugal society would mightily disturb.
Sect. 81. But tho' these are ties upon mankind, which make the conjugal
bonds more firm and lasting in man, than the other species of animals;
yet it would give one reason to enquire, why this compact, where
procreation and education are secured, and inheritance taken care for,
may not be made determinable, either by consent, or at a certain time,
or upon certain conditions, as well as any other voluntary compacts,
there being no necessity in the nature of the thing, nor to the ends of
it, that it should always be for life; I mean, to such as are under no
restraint of any positive law, which ordains all such contracts to be
perpetual.
Sect. 82. But the husband and wife, though they have but one common
concern, yet having different understandings, will unavoidably sometimes
have different wills too; it therefore being necessary that the last
determination, i. e. the rule, should be placed somewhere; it naturally
falls to the man's share, as the abler and the stronger.
But this
reaching but to the things of their common interest and property, leaves
the wife in the full and free possession of what by contract is her
peculiar right, and gives the husband no more power over her life than
she has over his; the power of the husband being so far from that of an
absolute monarch, that the wife has in many cases a liberty to separate
from him, where natural right, or their contract allows it; whether that
contract be made by themselves in the state of nature, or by the customs
or laws of the country they live in; and the children upon such
separation fall to the father or mother's lot, as such contract does
determine.
Sect. 83. For all the ends of marriage being to be obtained under
politic government, as well as in the state of nature, the civil
magistrate doth not abridge the right or power of either naturally
necessary to those ends, viz. procreation and mutual support and
assistance whilst they are together; but only decides any controversy
that may arise between man and wife about them. If it were otherwise,
and that absolute sovereignty and power of life and death naturally
belonged to the husband, and were necessary to the society between