CHAPTER IV.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT-PARENT AND CHILD.

SEC. 1. The rights of parents result from their duties. Parents are bound to maintain and educate their children; the law has given them such authority, and in the support of that authority a right to the exercise of such discipline as may be requisite for the discharge of their sacred trust. This is the true foundation of parental power, and the parent's right to correct, to this end and to this extent, has never been disputed by Church or State. hateth his son; but he that betimes." (Prov. 13: 24.) parent over the person and sometimes carried to a most atrocious extent. The punishment for disobedience to parents, under the Jewish law, was death. "And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones that he die." (Deut. 21: 18-21.)

"He that spareth his rod loveth him chasteneth him Indeed, this power of the liberty of the child was

SEC. 2. The Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Gauls, and

Romans allowed to the fathers absolute dominion over their offspring; but the Romans, according to Justinian, exceeded all other people, and the liberty and the lives of the children were placed within the power of the father. "Jus autem potestatis, quod in liberos habemus, proprium est Romanorum, nulli enim alii sunt homines, qui talem in liberos habeant potestatem, qualem nos habemus." (Inst. Just. lib. 1, tit. 9, sec. 3.) The power of the father over the life of the child was greatly weakened in public opinion by the time of Augustus, under the silent operation of refined manners and cultivated morals. It was looked upon as obsolete when the Pandects were compiled. Bynkershoek was of opinion that the power ceased under the Emperor Hadrian, for he banished a father for killing his son. The Emperor Constantine made the crime capital as to adult children. In the age of Tacitus the exposing of infants was unlawful; but merely holding it to be unlawful was not sufficient. When the crime of exposing and killing infants was made capital, under Valentinian and Valens, then the practice was finally abolished, and the paternal power became itself subject to the standard of reason and of our own municipal law, which admits only the jus domestic amendationis, or the right of inflicting moderate correction under the exercise of a sound discretion. (2 Kent's Com. 203; Taylor's Elements of the Civil Law, 395; Gibbon's History, vol. 8, pp. 55–57; Sallust, Bel. Cat. ch. 39; Tacit. de Mor. Ger. ch. 19; Bynkershoek Opera, tome 1, p. 346; Heinec. Syn. Antiq. Rom.

Jur. lib. 1. tit. 9; Opera, tome 4.) Dr. Taylor, in his Elements of Civil Law, (pp. 403-406,) gives a concise history of the progress of the Roman jurisprudence, in its efforts to destroy this undue power of the parent; but Bynkershoek has composed a regular treatise, with infinite learning, on this subject. It is entitled "Opusculum de jure occidendi, vendendi, et exponendi liberos apud veteres Romanos." (Opera, tome 1, p. 346.) Heineccius gives the history of the Roman jurisprudence from Romulus to Justinian, relative to this tremendous power of the father, which, he says, was justly termed by the Roman authors patria majestas. The obedience, and even gratitude, of children to their parents has been in all times considered not only proper, but a primary duty. "Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." (Exodus 20: 12.) We have already referred to the great power given to the parents by the Persians, Egyptians, Greeks, Gauls, and Romans. Among the Hindoos, disobedience to parents was followed by a loss of the child's inheritance. (Gentoo Code, by Halhed, p. 64.) The first emigrants to Massachusetts followed the Jewish law, and made filial disobedience a capital crime. (Gov. Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts, vol. 1, p. 441.) Who can make question but that a man that hath children and family, both justly may and in duty ought to preserve them of his charge (as far as he is able) from the dangerous company of persons inflicted with the plague or pestilence,

or other contagious, noisome, and mortal diseases, and if such persons should offer to intrude into the man's house among his children and servants, notwithstanding his prohibition and warning to the contrary, and thereby shall endanger the health and the lives of them of the family, can any man doubt but that in such case the father of the family, in defense of himself, may withstand the intrusion of such infected and dangerous persons, and if otherwise he can not keep them out may kill them? Now in Scripture corruption in mind or judgment is counted a great infection or defilement, yea, and one of the greatest; for the apostle saying of some men, that to them there is nothing pure, gives this as the reason of it, because even their mind and conscience is defiled, (Titus 1: 15,) as if defilement of mind did ar gue the defilement of all; and that in such case there was nothing pure, even as, when leprosy was in the head, the priest must pronounce such a man utterly unclean, sith the plague was in his head. (Levit. 13: 44.) And it is the Lord's command that such corrupt persons be not received into house, (2 John 10,) which plainly enough implies that the householder hath power to keep them out, and that it was not within their power to come in if they pleased, whether the householder would or no. (Colonial Records of Mass.) If any child or children above sixteen years old, and of competent understanding, shall curse or smite their natural father or mother, he or they shall be put to death, unless it can be sufficiently testified that the parents have been very un

christianly negligent in the education of such children, or so provoked them by extreme and cruel correction that they have been forced thereunto to preserve themselves from death or maiming. (Laws of New-Plymouth, Mass. 1671.) If a man have a stubborn or rebellious son, of sufficient years and understanding, namely, sixteen years of age, which shall not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them, then shall his father or mother, being his natural parents, lay hold on him, and bring him before the magistrates assembled in court, and testify unto them that their son is stubborn and rebellious, and will not obey their voice and chastisement, but lives in sundry notorious crimes; such a son shall be put to death, or otherwise severely punished. (Ib.) These same laws were in force in Connecticut as early as 1642, and the following scriptural authorities were cited in their support: Ex. 21: 17; Lev. 20; Ex. 20: 15; Deut. 21: 20, 21.

vor.

SEC. 3. We believe that all governments and all peoples have regarded filial disobedience with great disfaEven filial ingratitude among the ancient Greeks seems to have been looked upon as extremely impious, and attended with the most certain effects of divine vengeance. (Iliad, book 9, v. 454.) In modern times, the right of the parent to exact obedience from his children is still conceded, but his powers for enforcing his commands are more in consonance with the civilization of the times. In English law, the parent may lawfully