And what will become of this
paternal power in that part of the world, where one woman hath
more than one husband at a time? or in those parts of America,
where, when the husband and wife part, which happens frequently,
the children are all left to the mother, follow her, and are
wholly under her care and provision? If the father die whilst the
children are young, do they not naturally every where owe the
same obedience to their mother, during their minority, as to
their father were he alive? and will any one say, that the mother
hath a legislative power over her children? that she can make
standing rules, which shall be of perpetual obligation, by which
they ought to regulate all the concerns of their property, and
bound their liberty all the course of their lives? or can she
inforce the observation of them with capital punishments? for
this is the proper power of the magistrate, of which the father
hath not so much as the shadow. His command over his children is
but temporary, and reaches not their life or property: it is but
a 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.
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