Rights and Duties of Parents

a) Parental Authority

We have seen that authority is a natural necessity in any society. Hence, we may conclude at once that it is a necessity in conjugal society. The ends of marriage cannot be served if there is disagreement and strife between parents upon the matter of procreation and education of children; and, obviously, such discord is the direct frustration of the love and mutual helpfulness which marriage is naturally meant to give to husband and wife. Therefore, there must be authority in the family. What is the source of this authority? It is nature, and not the State. Individual men and women existed upon earth before there was any such thing as civil society, and at that time they had the rights which were obviously the heritage and the intention of their nature, and which could be fulfilled perfectly without civil society. These men and women had the right to marry, the right to have children, and the right and duty of educating children. These rights, then, belong to mankind by a title that is valid prior to any claims of civil society in the matter. It is true, indeed, that the State itself is a natural society, and as such is necessary to man. But this necessity is not lodged in the individual man as such, but in individual men as members of a considerable group. As soon as the number of persons in any locality or territory is large enough to make civil authority an evident natural convenience ; as soon as the number of human beings is large enough to make possible the violation of one another’s rights, the working of men to cross purposes, the rise of discord and turmoil, the existence of bullying, domineering, injustice, and enslavement; so soon does civil society become a natural requirement of mankind in that place. But the fact remains that conjugal society is a natural requirement, prior to that other natural requirement called the State. The family is the foundation and the fountain source of the State; for from the family come the citizens that constitute the State. Hence, it is an absurd and topsy-turvy piece of thinking that essays to trace the origin of domestic authority to the State. Granted, then, that there must be authority in the family, and that this authority comes from the natural law, a further question arises. In what member or members of the family does this authority reside? In the parents, and not in the children; so much is obvious. But in which of the parents? The parents themselves, while not a family, constitute conjugal society; and in this society there must be authority. Is that authority lodged equally in husband and wife?

It could not be so; for, although husband and wife are equals, and are meant to achieve the ends of their state by harmonious effort, it is evident that, where there are but two members in a society, equal authority could bring about a deadlock on any issue, and could thwart the very end for which the society exists. It is unreasonable to think that a society, which is a stable union, could be marked by essential instability; it is absurd to suppose that a society, which is a union of persons working for a common end, could be so constituted as to render impracticable and even impossible the achievement of any end at all. Yet this is precisely what those must think and suppose who assert the equal authority of husband and wife in conjugal society. One of the couple, therefore, must have the first place of authority. There must be one head of conjugal society and of the family. “The husband is the head of the wife,” says St. Paul, and this is not only a revealed truth; it is a postulate of human reason. The husband is fitted by his more robust physique, by his normal function of provider and defender, and by his capacity as founder of the family, to be the head of the household. His work in the home is no whit more important than that of the wife and mother. But we are not considering mere importance of duties here. We are investigating the question of place, of authority, in the home, and of what nature (the expression of God’s will) manifestly intends in this matter. The wife and mother is the full equal in dignity, in duty, and in destiny, of the husband and father; the point is, however, that she has not been placed in the position of command. The mother bestows upon her family the care and tenderness, the love and sympathy, that is necessary for her children and her spouse; and these special and holy offices would not be normally acceptable from the father, even if he were naturally qualified to bestow them. Now, it is inconsistent, nay, repugnant, to combine with the sweet and beautiful (and very arduous) duties of the mother, the sterner part of the last and highest authority in the home. Still, the mother is second in authority only to her husband; and she has true authority over her children. In normal circumstances, the mother’s authority is exercised without the strictness and even severity that is sometimes exacted of the father; and she may keep her rule without reproach by referring all matters that require stern measures to him whose place it is to enact and execute them. The wife is second in command; and she must obey her husband in all lawful things that pertain to the common life and state. Only thus can peace and harmony rule the home; and if these blessings be absent, the home is a poor one indeed. Parental authority, like all authority, must be exercised according to the dictates of reason. It has its limits. It is itself an authority subject to the authority of God. Hence, parents cannot require their children, and the husband cannot require his wife, to do anything that is contrary to the law of God, of nature, or of God’s Church. Authority that is exercised for injustice ceases to be authority, and has no binding force whatever.

b) The Education of Children

By the education of children we mean much more than their schooling. We mean their thorough training and development in things bodily, mental, and spiritual, from infancy to maturity. For this reason we speak of education as physical, intellectual, and moral. Physical education is achieved by due development of bodily powers and health. Hence, those in charge of education must see that children are properly fed, suitably clothed, and sufficiently sheltered. They must see that children get air, and sunlight, and exercise. They must care diligently for children who are sick. Intellectual education is achieved by instruction in the truths that man must know, and in those that he finds of use and of grace and culture. Those in charge of education must impart such truths patiently and perseveringly. They must train children in the knowledge of God and of duties; they must impart such knowledge as will enable the children to make their way in life, to support themselves according to the measure of their physical needs; and they must give to the children such opportunities of cultural enlightenment as are suitable to their condition and to the proper perfecting of mental powers. Moral education is achieved by training the will to embrace and fulfill the great duties which intellectual education makes known to the mind. The child must be shown how to do the thing for which life was given him. He must be trained to the practical love and service of God, and to the love of his neighbor as himself. Those who have charge of education must see to all these matters. Now, who are “those in charge of education” ? We answer: the parents, first, last, and exclusively! What of the State? Has not the State the right to control education and the duty to impart it ? Consider: The State does not beget children; infants are not committed to the State, but to their parents. If the parents do not care for the life and training of the child, the whole world is unanimous in condemning them. No one condemns the State. Now, if there is just condemnation for neglected duty, there is a right to exercise that duty. Therefore, parents, and not the State, have the right to educate their children. This right is inalienable, it is a right that parents must see through to effective realization: and that is only saying that it is a duty. Parents have the right and the duty to educate their children. But how is the State to assure itself of good citizens if it does not train them up? Let the State do all it can to encourage sound education, especially moral education. But let it not invade the home, and try to make itself superior to the family, the primal society upon which the State itself is founded. For the State may just as well and as lawfully tell a man what his children shall have for breakfast, and how they shall eat it, and at what particular table, as it may lawfully decide upon a set form of education and thrust this upon the children. But illiteracy is a great crime; and unless the State direct and conduct the education of children, illiteracy will be the rule. It is denied that illiteracy will be the rule. It is denied that illiteracy is a crime. It is a disadvantage in modern life, and a person may have a hard time securing suitable employment if he cannot read or write. But some of the noblest men and women who ever lived would be called “illiterate,” and that by many a sick-brained modern who never had an original thought in his life, and whose whole claim, to learning is founded upon the fact that he has amassed a certain number of “points” and “credits” by sitting for a required number of hours upon hard oaken school-benches. But surely school training, college training, and university training are the big things in life! Surely these supply man with true culture! Without these man would be dull and brutish, little better than an animal! School, college, and university may supply a very valuable, but not indispensable, part of intellectual education. These institutions, valuable as they may be, are not the signs and monuments of the “big things in life.5’ The big thing in life is the achievement of the end of life. To speak as a Christian, and that is to speak as a fully rational and reasonable man, the big thing in life is the saving of one’s soul—that, and nothing else! Culture? What is it? Is there any university student, aye, or professor of our times, that can formulate a true and generally acceptable definition of it? True culture is doubtless true development; but true development is true education ; and true education fits a man for the achieving of the end of life, for God and eternal happiness. Schools, colleges, and universities offer to a man—or may offer to man when they are what they should be— opportunities for learning that will make his life on earth more pleasant, and his way to eternity more clear. This is indeed a noble service. But when we come to the schools and universities as they are, especially the secular and State universities, we find them stressing this life, praising mere worldly success, forgetting all about the life to come, or denying its existence. And for the last complaint, viz., that man without schooling would be dull and brutish, and little more than an animal—is it not the whole purpose of many a secular university course to make man believe that he is little more than an animal? “Education” and “culture” are words easy to say, pleasant on the tongue, delightful in the ear, but they are abused much more in our day than they are properly used. For these words indicate noble processes that are properly and perfectly conducted in the home, and by the parents. At least they are to be so conducted, and this is the requirement of the natural law. The part of the State, then, is to furnish opportunity for learning; to foster it; to be its patron. If parents neglect the education of their children, the State may compel them to look to their duties, and this is all. If the parents decide that this or that child shall learn a trade, that is their business; no wrong is done to the child; no obstacle is placed in the way of that child to thwart the achievement of its last end; and the State has no right to interfere. In this matter of the relations of the individual man, and the individual family, to the State—and it is a very serious and important matter—we must keep level heads and clear eyes. On the one hand, the State is needed by man for suitable life in society; it brings him security and many other blessings. On the other hand, it is the individual man w!k> is the image of God; it is the individual family that is the basic natural society. The State is meant to minister to the needs of man, as individual, and in the family; it is not meant to be his owner or unreasoning master. In sober fact, the individual man is the more important thing, and the State the less important.

Of course, the individual man and the individual family belong to the lesser order, if one considers mere size, space, and numerical extent; and the State belongs to the larger order. But the State is not, therefore, the superior of men. The whole of human society is only a repetition of the individual man, just as the number 435,678,965 is only a repetition of the unit. Human society is not different from the men that make it up; it is the men that make it up; just as the large number mentioned is not different from the units that make it up, it is the units that make it up—only looked at collectively. And the State is only a section of human society, a section that has assumed proper identity, as distinct from other sections, by the adoption of a certain form of government. Therefore, we must not conceive of the State as a vaguely defined, but gigantic and all-powerful force, distinct from individual men, and keeping them in subjection. We are too apt to think of it in this way, and many of the men who rise to places of control in the government are too apt to think of it in this way. Their shadowy giant becomes a terrorizing agency; his mere size and strength tend to make him a bully. But the individual citizens ought to be alert, and they ought not to be cowed by this shadowgiant. This does not mean that individual men should feel free to disrupt social life; it only means that they should keep clear and sane their sense of values. Now, the State is the more easily conceived of as man’s master from the fact that it can imprison a man, and even put him to death. This, however, is not done to vindicate the rights of the State, but to vindicate the rights of the individual men that live in the State. Once we have that clear, once we grasp the truth that the State is not something inhuman and monstrous, taller than the mountains and resistless as the sea, a thing surrounding man, and forcing man, and ruling man as it pleases, we shall be on the way to the proper understanding of the complicated relations of the individual man and the individual family to the State. We shall be in a fair way to judge properly the inanity of many remarks that fall each day from the lips of persons who suppose themselves educated, such remarks, for instance, as, “Why isn’t there a law against this ? Why doesn’t the government force these people to keep their children clean?” or, “Why doesn’t the legislature pass a law compelling this subject to be taught in the schools ?” and so on. There is a place for State laws; these are required for the safety of men living together in numbers as a society; these laws are to be respected and obeyed; they are meant to be a help to the individual men that live in civil society. But if State authority is defined by these high purposes, it is also limited by them. When the State interferes with the natural rights of individual men or of individual families, it is doing as unjust and immoral a deed as the father (the seat of parental authority) would do were he to outrage the conscience of his children or injure their health or interfere with their normal development. What should we think of the father who would say, “I like bow-legs. All my children must have bow-legs. This interesting little device of unyielding iron must be clamped upon them to insure the desired result, the proper parenthetical curve”? What should be thought of a mother who said, “I find that roast beef is very good for the complexion; therefore, I shall stuff my babies with roast beef, and nothing but roast beef, until their little cheeks bloom like June roses”? These absurd examples do not make us think that fathers and mothers are wrong in exercising their authority; it only makes us understand that their authority has limits, and that it can be horribly abused. So we are to understand, not that State authority is wrong, or an evil, for it is a necessary good; but we are to understand that State authority has limits, and that it can be horribly abused. It is so abused when the State violates the natural rights of individuals and of families. It is so abused when the State seeks to assume the full control and dictatorship in the matter of education. The imposition of a set form of State education upon a child is as unreasonable and as evil as iron clamps fixed upon its body. The cramming of the child’s mind with subjects chosen by the State is as unreasonable as the stuffing of babies with roast beef. We conclude: Parents have the right and duty of educating their children. This they must do in accordance with the natural law, the law of God, and with the prescriptions of true religion and morality.

Summary of the Article

We have seen, in this Article, that authority is necessary in conjugal society, which is established by husband and wife, and in the family, which is established by father, mother, and child. We have justified the declaration that the normal and natural seat of that authority is the husband and father. We have defined the education of their children as the first and most important duty of parents. We have learned what such education is, and have shown that the work of conducting it belongs to the parents of the children, and to no other agency. We have discussed in some detail the fallacy of “State Controlled and Compulsory Education.”

THE STATE, MAN’S WORK, AND THE CHURCH