Section — Noldin, Summa of Moral Theology
Section 2. On the Obligations of Parents
293. On obligations in general. Parents, and in their defect ascendants, are bound from piety to show children love, bodily education, and spiritual education. And the obligation of love indeed never ceases, but the obligation of education ceases when the end itself ceases.
a. The right of educating offspring belongs in the first place to parents; wherefore they offend against nature itself who vindicate the right of educating to civil authority.1
b. The obligation of education arises from the law of nature and is of its kind grave.
c. In defect of parents, ascendants, namely grandfather and grandmother, are bound to educate children; and indeed the paternal grandfather, because he succeeds to the father, before the maternal. But now civil law is accustomed to supply the defect of parents by constituting a tutor or curator. This obligation also extends to illegitimate and spurious children (n. 292).
1 Cf. Th. Meyer, Institutiones iuris natur., II, n. 108 ss.
294. Obligation of love. The obligation of love comprises three things: they ought to will good to children, do good to them, and turn away evil from them, whether bodily or spiritual.
a. Therefore parents sin against piety, and also gravely according to the measure of the matter, if they pursue children with hatred, seriously call down evils upon them, favor one of the children before the others without just cause, subordinate some children, for example those of a prior marriage, to others, inflict evils upon them or do not turn evils away from them when they can.
b. If they manifest the hidden defects of their children to outsiders, if they treat them too harshly, so that, for example, they inflict a grave evil upon them by mutilation, they offend not only against piety, but also against justice.
295. Obligation of bodily education. Bodily education likewise requires three things: that they procure for children life, sustenance, and state.
Since the primary end of marriage, which is the procreation of offspring, cannot be obtained unless to generation there is added the preservation and suitable education of the offspring received, those about to marry, with the obligation of rendering the conjugal debt, also contract the obligation of preserving and educating the offspring to be received.
a. Therefore parents are bound, from the very conception of the offspring up to the time when it can sufficiently provide for itself, to supply to it those things which are necessary for preserving life and health, and likewise to turn away all things which harm life or health. And so the care of the mother concerning the life of the offspring begins immediately from conception; therefore she ought to guard against both the danger of abortion and any detriment whatever of the fetus.1
The mother ought to take care that the offspring be born sound in mind and body. Therefore let her abstain from food and drink, especially alcoholic, which harms the body and irritates the nerves. She ought to beware, as far as can be done, of more vehement excitations and movements of the heart, of illicit desires, and especially of all those things which injure chastity, such as wicked readings and obscene spectacles. For since every movement of the soul, every passion, in general all internal thoughts and appetitions exercise an influence upon the fetus, the whole internal life should be peaceful, chaste, religious, and pious, so that the offspring may acquire hereditary dispositions rather toward virtue and good morals than toward vices.2
b. Parents are bound to supply to children sustenance, that is, food, clothing, habitation, and education, up to that time when they themselves can provide the things necessary for themselves according to the measure of their state, indeed even through the whole time of life if they are found in extreme or grave necessity. Nor are they excused from the office of supporting children on account of their perversity.
alpha. The father is not immune from the obligation of supporting a son, with support necessary for life, if the latter has dissipated the portion previously given to him. In equal manner, if the son has contracted debts for procuring sustenance for himself, the father is bound to pay them, because he is bound to support the son; but debts contracted from another title he is not bound to pay.
beta. Therefore parents sin gravely who without just cause expose offspring, whether in a hospital or on the threshold of a parish house, etc., not only because they fail in their office, but also because they harm the offspring, since they bring it into suspicion of spurious origin. And if they expose the offspring in a deserted place, so that for this reason it undergoes danger to life, they sin not only against piety, but also against justice. Yet if they had a just cause for exposing offspring, such as the danger of losing life or reputation, or the impossibility of supporting the offspring, this would excuse them at least from grave sin.
gamma. But if a rich father exposes offspring in a foundling hospital (Findelhaus) erected by pious generosity for supporting exposed infants, according to a probable opinion he is not bound to restore the expenses for supporting the offspring. For these hospitals were erected to protect the life of little ones who are accustomed to be killed by the poor lest they have to support them, and by the rich lest they be defamed. From these things some infer that the rich ought to pay the expenses for supporting offspring, because, to avoid infamy, it is not necessary that they be excused from paying expenses. But others probably release them from this burden, because the reputation of the parents and the safety of the little ones would not be sufficiently provided for if the rich had to pay the expenses of support.3 But where exposed infants are supported by care of the civil community, whether in private homes or in a hospital, from taxes or from goods destined for the poor, rich parents are bound to compensate the expenses.4
c. Parents are bound to procure for children a state suitable to their condition, so that afterward they can live honorably according to their state. Therefore alpha. they ought to take care that they learn either a trade or letters; beta. they ought to employ at least some moderate diligence so that they may leave to children an inheritance suitable to their state.5 Wherefore parents can sin gravely not only if they squander their goods so that they leave the children needy, but also if they employ no care to acquire goods from which children may be supported according to their state and receive an inheritance.
Parents are indeed bound to furnish a suitable dowry to children who embrace an honorable state; yet if they justly dissent from their marriage, they are bound to furnish only necessary support if they need it.
1 Cf. Capellmann, Medicina pastoralis^6 (Aquisgrani: Barth, 1893), p. 155 ss.
2 Cf. Ernst, Elternpflicht, chapter 2 (Kevelaer: Butzon-Bercker).
3 St. Alphonsus, n. 656.
4 Cf. Marres, De iustitia^2 (Ruraemundae: Romen, 1889), l. 2, n. 310 ss.
5 Cf. 2 Cor. 12:14.
296. Whether mothers are bound to nourish children with their own milk. A mother of herself is bound to nourish children with her own milk; yet this obligation can scarcely be called grave. Wherefore a mother does not seem to sin gravely, even if without just cause she hands over an infant to a nurse to be nourished, provided the little one is suitably and sufficiently nourished. Physiologists judge of this obligation somewhat more severely than theologians. For maternal milk, so they say, is for the infant the most natural food; indeed it is the nourishment uniquely suited to it. Wherefore a mother assuming a nurse, and especially nourishing offspring either wholly or in part with cow's milk, fails in the office imposed upon her by nature itself; moreover she exposes her own health to various dangers. There is added the reason of the common good: for from the custom, widely prevailing, of employing nurses without just cause, it follows that nurses neglect their own offspring, that they fornicate lest they lose the office of nurse, etc.1 But from these things it indeed follows that mothers are earnestly to be exhorted to nourish their offspring themselves, without however needing to be obligated to this under grave obligation.
Three causes are customarily enumerated on account of which mothers can without sin hand children over to others to be nourished: alpha. necessity, as if the mother is too weak, sick, if milk is lacking, etc.; beta. notable utility, as if the mother cannot nurse the child without abandoning labor by which she is accustomed to procure sustenance for herself; gamma. custom flourishing among noble families. But custom against the law of nature can generate good faith, but it cannot remove the law itself; wherefore not even for a noble woman without legitimate cause is it licit to hand over offspring to another's nurse. But in this case they are bound under grave obligation to employ a nurse who in no way harms the health of the infant; for experience establishes that by certain diseases of the nursing woman the infant also can easily be infected. Capellmann and Antonelli rightly affirm that the moral qualities of the nurse effectively influence the infant, although others deny this.2
1 Capellmann, Medicina pastoralis^6, n. 47 s.
2 Cf. Antonelli, Medicina pastor.^2, I, 489 ss.; Olfers, Pastoralmedicin^2 (Freiburg: Herder, 1893), p. 32 ff.
297. Obligation of spiritual education.1 Spiritual education is chiefly instruction and right governance in those things which are necessary for attaining salvation, and therefore it comprises four things: instruction, example, correction, and vigilance.
a. Parents: alpha. ought to instruct children, either by themselves or through others, in all things which are necessary for salvation, whether by necessity of means or of precept, and in the exercises of Christian life which are common to all the faithful. beta. They ought to take care that children be imbued with good morals, observe the precepts of God and of the Church, frequent the sacraments, and abstain from sins.
After considering the social and economic circumstances which now occur almost everywhere, parents are bound to send children to school, not only so that they may be suitably instructed in the Christian religion, but also in letters. Although elementary instruction is not called absolutely necessary for procuring for oneself the supports of life, nevertheless those who lack the instruction which others enjoy are pressed by many difficulties and inconveniences; but parents are bound to preserve their children from inconveniences of this sort, since they easily can. There is added that those whose mind is suitably developed and cultivated can much more easily drive away the dangers which today everywhere threaten both faith and morals.
b. They ought to furnish children a good example; wherefore they sin gravely against piety if in a grave matter they are for them an occasion of sinning, for example, by blaspheming before them, by speaking foul things against good morals, impious things against faith.
c. They are bound seriously indeed, but prudently and discreetly, to correct the vices of children. Sacred Scripture inculcates this obligation rather often,2 so that parents can sin gravely if they notably neglect to correct the defects and sins of children.
Parents sin, sometimes even gravely, if without legitimate cause they beat children from hatred alone, likewise if they exceed just limits by punishing more gravely than the children have deserved.
d. Vigilance, by which parents are bound to guard children, demands that they remove all things which can be harmful to children. Therefore let them not permit them to associate with evil companions, read bad books, frequent bad workshops or schools or theaters, unless necessity compels them.
Parents must also watch lest children harm others: and indeed those who do not yet have the use of reason they must watch continually and from justice; but those who have sufficient discretion they must watch from piety and to this extent, insofar as they prohibit them from inflicting evils, as far as they morally can.
1 Pedagogical institutes treat professedly of the end, object, and means of education.
2 Prov. 13:24; 23:13.