§ I. On the Obligations of Masters

382. • Masters are bound: 1. to treat their servants benignly; 2. to instruct and correct them; 3. to pay them a just price.

I. To treat benignly, that is, by addressing them and commanding them decently and humanely, furnishing good and sufficient food, not burdening them with excessive works, and conveniently caring for the sick. This is clear from natural law and from sacred Scripture, Ecclus. 33. 31: If thou hast a faithful servant, let him be to thee as thy soul; treat him as a brother. - Ephes. 6. 9: And you, masters, do the same things to them (servants), forbearing threats, knowing that both their Lord and yours is in heaven, and there is no acceptance of persons with Him.

II. To instruct and correct; for the master is the head of the servant, as of the whole family; but it belongs to the head to direct where there is need. It also seems to be clear from the words of Paul, 1 Tim. 5. 8: But if anyone does not have care of his own, and especially of those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel. But servants are reckoned among domestics. - Elbel, n. 590, and others commonly.

III. To pay a just price; for there is question of an obligation of justice and natural equity; whence the defrauding of such wages is numbered among the sins crying to heaven.

Resolves. - Masters can sin, and indeed even gravely:

1. If they do not grant servants time for learning the rudiments of the Christian Faith, or do not send them to catechism and sermon; if they do not take care that they confess and communicate at the due time.

2. If they hire, or retain in the house, servants who are irreligious, impious, blaspheming, or speaking filthy things; if they do not admonish and correct those sinning gravely, or do not dismiss those unwilling to promise amendment, unless perhaps they especially need their work and cannot find others.

3. If they do not have care, as much as lies in them, that servants abstain from sins; if they permit them an occasion of sinning; if by depraved example or solicitations they induce or entice them into sin.

4. If they do not pay the promised or just stipend, or delay too much; if they do not care for sick servants and immediately cast them out, or dismiss them without just cause before the appointed time.