Chapter I. Duties of Children to Parents

CHILDREN owe their existence to their parents, and for many years, until they come to maturity, they stand in need of their constant care and direction. It is but right, therefore, that children should love, reverence, and obey the authors of their being and their natural guardians. This is due to parents from their children on account of the special relationship in which they stand towards them, and so, as St Thomas teaches,” there must be a special virtue which regulates the mutual obligations of parent and child. This virtue is called piety in Catholic theology, and it regulates not only the mutual offices of parents and children towards each other, but our duty to other near relatives, and to our country and fellow-countrymen. It is a virtue similar to charity, but it binds more strictly, so that while charity prescribes a general love for all mankind, piety obliges us to a special love for those who are near to us, and for the country in which we were born.¹

If, then, hatred or want of love for our fellow-men is of itself a grave sin, as we saw above, it will be still easier to commit a grave sin by want of proper affection for our parents. To show dislike of them or contempt for them, or to show that we are ashamed of them, will be a grave sin if our unfilial conduct is likely to cause them serious grief. In the same way, serious want of reverence and respect shown in word or action is grievously sinful. To strike a parent, or even to threaten to do so, will usually be mortally sinful.

By the duty of obedience children are bound to obey their parents in all that belongs to their bringing up and to domestic discipline. Sins of disobedience will be grievous if the matter is sufficiently important and the command is given with the serious intention of imposing a strict obligation.

Children are only bound to support their parents when they cannot support themselves, for whatever property a child may have or may acquire belongs exclusively to him. Among the working classes it is usual for elder brothers or sisters who have begun to work to throw their earnings into the common stock for the support of the family until they leave home and get an establishment of their own. This is quite as it should be, for the money which they earn is scarcely sufficient to pay for their own keep; or if it does more, there are little brothers and sisters or aged parents who are dependent on them, and whom they are bound to help to support.

¹ St Thomas, Summa, 2-2, q. 101, a. I.

The other obligations of children towards their parents are permanent and last as long as life, but that of obedience ceases with their emancipation, In England children are emancipated from the control of their parents when they become twenty-one years of age, when they marry, or when they enter into religion; for as soon as they have attained the age of puberty they are independent of their parents in what concerns the salvation of their souls and the choice of a state of life.

A minor may also enlist as a soldier without his parents’ consent according to the English law.

Moreover, when a child has attained years of discretion, which he is considered to do at sixteen, it would seem that he may lawfully depart from home and provide for himself, if it be for his advantage. This, of course, supposes that the necessities of his parents or of his brothers and sisters do not require that he should remain at home. If a youth has acted in this way, and it appears to be for his benefit, English courts will not compel him to return home, and it was the common teaching of the classical moralists that in acting thus a youth would do nothing wrong.¹

¹ Laymann, lib. 3, tract. 4, c. 8, n. 13.