Ductor dubitantium, or, The rule of conscience in all her generall measures serving as a great instrument for the determination of cases of conscience : in four books / by Jeremy Taylor ...

Of Castigation, or the Coercitive power of Parents. RULE II. Fathers have a power to chastise their offending children, but not a power of life and death.

IN the laws of Romulus and Numa,* 1.1 Fathers had a power three times to sell their children, and a power to put them to death in certain cases: and they attribute much of the prosperity of their city to this permission, no∣thing being a better instrument to make good citizens, then by making them good sons: it being very unlikely that ever he should command well abroad, that knows not well how to obey at home.

Quicunque patrem timet ac reveretur, Hic in bonum civem evadet proculdubio,

said Timocles, He that fears and obeys his Father, without a good citizen* 1.2. And therefore it was observed by Dionysius Halicarnasseus that amongst the Greeks, Contu∣macy, Impiety and Parricide were very common; and he gives this rea∣son, because Charondas, Pittacus and Solon did by their laws give the Fathers no great power over their children. But I said that the Ro∣mans did, and those great examples of Titus Manlius, C. Flaminius, C. Cassius, who put their sons to death, were indeed very severe, but did imprint great terrors upon all the Roman youth. Bodinus thinks this to be a natural and unalterable power; and Aerodius supposes that God would not have commanded Abraham to kill his son, but that it was a part of his ordinary and inherent power; and when Judah commanded his daughter in law Thamar to be brought forth and burn'd for her adultery, it gave indication that he by his supreme paternal power in the family had power of life and death. And of this there is no question in the heads of families, where the Father is a Patriarch, the fountain of his nation, or of his society, and under the command of no superior: for the paternal power is the fountain of the Royal; and Abimelech was nothing but the King my Father.

But when families were multiplied,* 1.3 though Fathers were fitter to be trusted with the severest power then any other sort of interested persons, yet because this might fall into disorder, God was pleas'd in the law of Moses so to order this affair, that the Fathers power should not be dimi∣nished, & yet the execution of it and the declaration of the sentence should be trusted to the Judge. For if a Father found his son stubborn, rebelli∣ous, disobedient, a glutton or a drunkard, all which are personal crimes, and against the private authority and counsel of the Father,* 1.4 the Father and the Mother might delate him to the Judge, and without further proof but their own testimony he was to be ston'd to death. Drunkennesse & gluttony were in no other cases capital in the law of Moses, but when joyn'd with rebellion or disobedience to their parents. And like to this proceeding in Moses law was the processe in the Persian Monarchy. For Aelian tells that when

Rhaco the Mardian brought Cartomes his son with his hands bound behind him to Artaxerxes, desiring that the Prince would command him to be slain, because he was impudent, he was naught, he was a villain; the Persian King ask'd him if he could find in his heart to see his son die with violence. The Father replied, I have in my garden a goodly lettice, fat and wanton and full of leaves. When I find any of them luxuriant, proud and exor∣bitant, though it be a part of the body I cut it off; and so I doe to what∣soever is bitter and superfluous, and my lettice is the sweeter for it, it does not bewail the losse of it's bad leaves, but thrives the better. Think the same of me, O King; for though he be par'd away that hurts my family, that gives ill example to his Brothers, my stock will be the more thriving, florid and fruitfull in all good things.] By this instance we perceive that when Fathers had not power to put to death their rebellious children, they could require it of the Prince, who was to proceed summarily and meerly upon the Fathers instance. And we find in the French Annals that Stephen Boslée the President of Paris impal'd a yong fellow because his Mother said that she could by no arts or labour keep him from being a thief.

But this went off very much in the manners of men; and children were by other means restrain'd ordinarily,* 1.5 before things were brought to that extremity;* 1.6 and in the Civil law parents were forbidden to kill their children, and this law hath prevail'd in all Christendome, excepting that a man is in some places permitted to kill his daughter if he sees her in un∣chast Embraces. But in stead of these great excesses of power, there is left to Christian parents nothing but a decent castigation in the lesser and single faults, and disinherison in case of great and persevering. That children are to submit to the animadversions and chastisements of their Fathers is the voice of nature, and of all Nations, of Scripture and right Reason. So S. Paul,* 1.7 We have had Fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: and Ben-Sirach teaches us, In opere & sermone & omni pati∣entia honora Patrem tuum,* 1.8 Honour thy Father in thy work and in thy word, and in all patience, so the Vulgar Latin reads it; that is, suffer what he im∣poses upon you: and this was it which the yong Greek that Plutarch speaks of had learn'd in Zeno's school, Didici Patris iram ferre; I have learn'd (saith he) patiently to bear my Fathers anger. The authority is plain; the mea∣sures of it are onely, that it be done for amendment; that is, that it be dis∣cipline, not anger and revenge, and that it be done with charity and mode∣ration, which is signified by S.* 1.9 Paul, Parents, provoke not your children to wrath; which precept he repeats, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,* 1.10 give them no opprobrious words, no contumelious and provoking language, and there∣fore much lesse any cruel and undecent castigations.

Pudore & liberalitate liberos Retinere satius esse credo,* 1.11 quam metu. Hoc patrium est, potius consuefacere filium Suâ sponte rectè facere, quam alieno metu. Hoc Pater ac Dominus interest: hoc qui nequit, Fateatur se nescire imperare liberis.

A Master governs by fear, & a Father by love, & both by their authority: but the gentle way is the Fathers method; but if he will use the severe, he hath authority to doe it, and right or wrong he must be suffered, till the evil be insufferable, and then he may decline it, but ever with reverence to his Fathers honour; for indeed against a Fathers tyranny there is no aid, no

remedy, no intercession, but by an appeal to the common Father, the chief of all the tribes and all the families. This onely I am to adde, That as Fa∣thers have not a power of life and death over their children; so neither are they lightly to use that power which they have, and is next to this, that is, that I may use S.* 1.12 Ambrose his expression, ne laesa pietas Patris ulciscatur se exhaeredatione vel abdicatione contumacis generis, a power of disinherison is not to be us'd for every great offence, much lesse for a litte. Pater, nisi magnae & multae injuriae patientiam evicerint,* 1.13 nisi plus est quod timet quam quod damnat, non facile accedit ad decretorium stylum, said Seneca, A Father will not easily proceed to an exterminating sentence, unlesse great and many in∣juries have quite overcome his patience. Nor then neither, unlesse he fear worse things then those which he already blames. For, as Quintilian observ'd well, this power was not given to Fathers but when their sons are incor∣rigible.* 1.14 Fulmen istud Patrum adversus ferociam adolescentiae datum est, adversus filios qui peccare plus possunt. If they will sin yet more, and will not be corrected, then they may unwillingly use this thunderbolt. It is like the sentence of excommunication, never to be us'd but when nothing else will cure the man, and nothing at all will make the mischief tolerable: that is, a son may not be disinherited, but when he may be hated, which may never be,* 1.15 sine causis multis, magnis & necessariis (as Cicero affirms) The causes must be great and many, and intolerable, and without remedy. But of these things because the Fathers are judges, they must judge accor∣ding to the permissions of law, and the analogies of Christian prudence and charity; for if they doe amisse, the Child is miserable by the Fathers pas∣sion, and the Father by his own.

Notes

• * 1.1

  1.
• * 1.2

  Si quis in∣•••••••••• fuerit in parente 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Magi∣stratuum s•••• in∣capax Xenoph. l. 2. 〈◊〉〈◊〉 & fact. 〈◊〉〈◊〉
• * 1.3

  2.
• * 1.4

  Deater. 21. 18.
• * 1.5

  3.
• * 1.6

  § final. inst. de noxa. l. Divus. ff. ad leg. Pomp. de parricid. & toto tit. C. de his qui Parent. vel fil. occid.
• * 1.7

  Hebr. 12. 9.
• * 1.8

  Ecclus. 3. 8.
• * 1.9

  Ephes. 6. 4.
• * 1.10

  Coloss. 3. 21.
• * 1.11

  Adelph. Act▪ 1. Sc. 1.
• * 1.12

  lib. 5. Epist. 20.
• * 1.13

  lib. 1. c. 14. de Clement.
• * 1.14

  Declam. 259.
• * 1.15

  Orat. pro Rosc. Amer.