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[print edition page 139]

Child ^†

(Enfant)

Contemporary political criticism of the Encyclopédie included the claim that its authors were undermining paternal authority. See especially Jaucourt’s article GOVERNMENT, below. The present article was also criticized for its political implications.¹

CHILD, son or daughter (Natural Law, Morality): Relation of a son or daughter to his or her father and mother. Roman Law extends the word “child” to grandchildren as well, be they of male or female descent.

Children, because of their close relationship to those who beget, feed, and educate them, have certain indispensable obligations toward their father and mother, such as deference, obedience, honor, and respect. They should also always be of service and give aid commensurate with their situation and gratitude.

Due to the state of weakness and ignorance into which children are born, they find themselves naturally subject to their father and mother, to whom nature gives all the necessary power to govern those for whom they must procure every advantage.

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As a result, children, for their part, must honor their mother and father in word and in deed. They owe them obedience, not a limitless obedience but one as extensive as this relationship demands and one as great as possible, given the dependency either party may have on mutual superiors. Children must feel affection, esteem, and respect for their father and mother and must testify to these sentiments in all their conduct. They must render their parents all services of which they are capable, advise them in business matters, console them in their misfortunes, patiently tolerate their bad moods and their defects. There is neither age, nor rank, nor position that can exempt a child from these sorts of duties. Finally, a child must aid, assist, and feed his mother and father, should the latter become needy or indigent. Solon was praised for having taxed with infamy all those who fail in this last duty, though it be infrequent in comparison with the need of fathers and mothers to nourish and raise their children.

However, to better understand the nature and the appropriate limits of the duties we have just discussed, we must carefully distinguish the three estates [états] of children, in accordance with the three phases of their lives.

In the first, their judgment is imperfect, and they lack discernment, as Aristotle says.

At the second, when their judgment is mature, they are still members of the paternal family; or, put another way and according to the same philosophy, they are not yet on their own.

The third and last occurs when they have left the family through marriage at an appropriate age.

All the actions of children of the first estate are subject to direction by their father and mother, for it is right that those not capable of managing themselves be governed by others, and only those who gave birth to a child are naturally responsible for governing him.

In the second phase, that is to say when children have attained the age where their judgment is fully developed, only matters important to the welfare of the paternal or maternal family depend on the will of the father and mother, and for the following reason: it is right that the interest of one party conform to the interests of all. With regard to all other actions, children have the moral power to do what they deem appropriate. Nevertheless, they should always strive to conduct themselves in a manner agreeable to their parents.

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Still, since this obligation is not founded on a right that the parents can exert to its full effect, but rather on what is demanded by natural affection, respect, and gratitude toward those who bestow life and education, then if a child fails in these duties, what he does against his parents’ wishes is no more null and void than a donation by a legitimate property owner made in violation of the rules of frugality becomes invalid solely for that reason.

In the third and last phase, the child is absolute master of himself in all respects, but he does not cease, for the rest of his life, to be obliged to have sentiments of affection, honor, and respect, whose foundations subsist forever. It follows from this principle that the acts of a king cannot be annulled simply because his father or mother has not authorized them.

If a child never acquires a sufficient degree of reason to govern himself, as happens with idiots and those born insane, he will always depend on the will of his father and mother. But these examples are rare and outside the ordinary course of nature. The bonds of children’s subjection thus resemble their swaddling clothes: they are necessary only because of the frailty of childhood. Age, which brings reason, places them outside paternal power and makes them masters of themselves. They have as much liberty vis-à-vis their father or mother as does a charge who, once his legally determined minority reaches its term, becomes the equal of his guardian.

The liberty of children arrived at the age of complete men, and the obedience they owe their father and mother beforehand, are not incompatible. Similarly, according to the most zealous defenders of absolute monarchy, the subjection of a prince during his minority to the queen regent, his wet nurse, his tutors, or his governors is not incompatible with the right to the crown he inherited from his father, or the sovereign authority which will one day be vested in him when age will have made him capable of ruling himself and others.

Although children, once they find themselves at an age to know what nature’s laws or civil society ask of them, are not obliged to violate these laws to satisfy their parents, a child is always obliged to honor his father and mother in recognition of the care they took of him, and nothing will exempt him from this. I say that he is forever obliged to honor his father and his mother, because the mother has as much right as the father, and should the father ever order the contrary, the child should not obey him.

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At the same time, I add, and most expressly, that the duties of honor, respect, attachment, and gratitude due the father and the mother may be more or less extensive on the part of children and may be proportional to the care parents invested in educating them, and to parental sacrifices. Otherwise, a child does not have much obligation to parents, who, after having brought him into the world, neglected to provide for him according to their situation, to furnish him the means to one day live happily or usefully, while they gave themselves up to their pleasures, tastes, passions, and the dissipation of their fortune, those vain and superfluous expenditures of which we see so many examples in the lands of luxury. “You deserve nothing from our country for having given it a citizen,” rightly states a Roman poet, “if as a result of your care he is not useful to the republic in times of war and peace and if he is not capable of making the most of our lands.”

Gratum est, quod patriae civem, populoque dedisti;

Si facis ut patriae sit idoneus, utilis agris

Utilis & bellorum, & pacis rebus agendis.

Juvenal, Sat., xiv. 70 & seqq.²

It is therefore easy to decide the long-debated question as to whether the perpetual obligation of children toward their father and mother is principally founded on birth or on the benefits of education. In effect, in order to reasonably claim that someone is greatly accountable to us for a good received, we have to have known to whom we were giving, at what cost, and if it had been our intent to render service to the beneficiary rather than to procure something useful or pleasurable for ourselves. We must know if we were compelled to act by reason, by our senses, or to satisfy some desire, and finally, if what we give can be useful to the recipient without our doing him other favors.

Many important questions related to this subject are still bandied about, though the majority can be resolved according to the principles we have established. Nevertheless, here are the main ones:

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(1) It may be asked whether or not the promises and engagements of a child are valid. I answer that the promises and engagements of a child who finds himself in the first category of childhood we defined are null and void, since all consent supposes (a) the physical power to consent; (b) the moral power to consent, that is, the use of reason; (c) a serious and free use of these two sorts of power. Now children, who cannot reason, fulfill neither of these conditions. But when the faculty of judgment is perfectly formed, it is likely that according to natural law, the child who freely committed himself to something, say, a loan, without having been surprised or deceived, must pay back this loan without having recourse to the benefits of civil law.

(2) It may be asked if a child, having grown up, may not leave his family without his mother and father’s acquiescence. I answer that in the independent state of nature, the heads of families cannot retain a child against his will when he gives good reasons for wanting to separate from his parents and to live free.

It follows that children, once they are mature, can marry without the consent of their father and mother, because the obligation to listen to and to respect the advice of one’s superiors does not detract from the right to dispose of one’s property and oneself. I know that the right of fathers and mothers is legitimately founded on their power, their love, and their reason. All this is true insofar as the child is in a state of ignorance and drunk with passion, but when children have attained the age of their reason’s maturity, they can dispose of themselves when taking a step where liberty is absolutely essential—that is to say, marriage. One cannot love through the heart of another. In a word, paternal power consists of raising and governing one’s children for as long as they are not in a state to govern themselves, but, according to natural right, it does not extend any further. See FATHER, MOTHER, PATERNAL POWER.

(3) It is asked if children, even those who are still in their mother’s belly, can acquire and maintain a right of property for goods transferred to them. Civilized nations have established that this be the case. Moreover, reason and natural equity authorize such a practice.

(4) Finally, it may be asked if children may be punished for a crime committed by their father or their mother. But that is a shameful question.

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Nobody can be reasonably punished for a crime committed by another when he himself is innocent. All merits and demerits are personal and depend on the individual’s will, which is the most personal and inalienable of life’s possessions. Human laws that condemn children for the crimes of their fathers are therefore as unjust as they are barbarous. “It is despotic furor,” aptly says the author of The Spirit of the Laws, “that demands that the disgrace of the father lead to that of the children and women: they are unfortunate enough without being criminals. Moreover, it is necessary that the prince allow supplicants to mediate between the accused and himself so that they may move him to clemency or enlighten his justice.”³ Article by Chevalier DE JAUCOURT