VIII

Truths Concerning Families and Relations

This section I shall begin, as relation itself does, with marriage.

I. The end of marriage is the propagation of mankind and joint happiness of the couple intermarrying, taken together, or the latter by itself.427 The difference of the sexes, with the strong inclination they have each to the enjoyment of the other,428 is plainly ordained by the Author of nature for the continuance of the species, which without that must be soon extinguished. And though people, when they marry, may have many times not so much the increase of their family in their design or wishes, as the gratification of an importunate appetite; yet since nature excites the appetite, and that tends to this end, nature (or rather its great Author) may be said to make this an end of the marriage, though the bridegroom and bride themselves do not.

And then as to that other thing, which either accompanies the aforesaid end of marriage, or is (as in many cases it can only be) the end itself429⁠—the joint happiness of the conjuges⁠—nobody can be supposed to marry in order and on set purpose to make him or herself unhappy, no nor without a presumption of being more happy. For without an apprehension of some degree of happiness to accrue, or what presents itself to the imagination as such and is taken for such, what can induce people to alter their condition? Something there must be, by which (however things prove upon trial) they think to better it. And indeed if their circumstances are such as may enable them to maintain a family and provide for children, without difficulties and an overburden of cares, and if they in good earnest resolve to behave themselves as they ought, and reciprocally to be helpful and loving each to other, much comfort and happiness430 may justly be expected from this intimate union,431 the interchange of affections, and a conspiration of all their counsels and measures,432 the qualities and abilities of the one sex being fitted and, as it were, tallying to the wants of the other. For to pass over in silence those joys which are truest when most concealed,433 many things there are which may be useful, perhaps necessary, to the man, and yet require the delicater hand or nicer management and genius of the woman:434 and so, vicissim, the woman cannot but want many things which require the more robust and active powers or greater capacity of the man.435 Thus, in lower life, while the wheel, the needle, etc. employ her, the plough or some trade perhaps demands the muscles and hardiness of him; and, more generally, if she inspects domestic affairs, and takes care that everything be provided regularly, spent frugally, and enjoyed with neatness and advantage, he is busied in that profession, or the oversight and improvement of that estate, which must sustain the charge of all this; he presides and directs in matters of greater moment; preserves order in the family by a gentle and prudent government; etc.436

As then I founded the greater societies of men upon the mutual convenience which attends their living regularly together, so may I found this less, but stricter, alliance between the man and the woman in their joint-happiness.437 Nature has a further aim: the preservation of the kind.

II. That marriages are made by some solemn contract, vow, or oath (and these perhaps attended with some pledge, or nuptial rites),438 by which the parties mutually engage to live together in love, and to be faithful, assisting, and the like, each to other, in all circumstances of health and fortune, till death parts them,439 I take for granted. For all nations have some form or other upon these occasions, and even private contracts cannot be made without some words in which they are contained, nor perhaps without some kind of significant, though private, ceremony between the lovers, which lose nothing of force with respect to them by their being both parties and witnesses themselves. Something must pass between them, that is declarative of their intentions, expresses their vows, and binds them each to the other. There is no coming together after the manner of man and wife upon any other foot.

III. That intimate union, by which the conjuges become possessed each of the other’s person,440 the mixture of their fortunes,441 and the joint relation they have to their children,442 all strengthen the bonds and obligations of matrimony. By every act done in pursuance of a covenant, such as the matrimonial is, that covenant is owned, ratified, and, as it were, made de integro and repeated.

Possession is certainly more than nothing. When this therefore is added to a former title, the title must needs be corroborated.

When two persons throw their all into one stock as joint-traders for life, neither of them can consistently with truth and honesty take his share out and be gone (i.e. dissolve the partnership) without the concurrence of the other; and sometimes it may not be easy, perhaps possible, to do it at all. Each therefore is even by this bound, and becomes obnoxious to the other.

And as to the present case, if the marriage be not altogether unfruitful, since both the parents are immediately related to the same child, that child is the medium of a fixed, unalterable relation between them. For, being both of the same blood with the child,443 they themselves come to be of the same blood; and so that relation, which at first was only moral and legal, becomes natural: a relation in nature which can never cease or be disannulled. It follows now that,

IV. Marrying, when there is little or no prospect of true happiness from the match,444 and especially if there are plain presages of unhappiness; after marriage, adultery; all kinds of infidelity; transferring that affection, which even under the decays of nature ought to preserve its vigor, and never to degenerate (at worst) but into a friendship of a superior kind;445 and the like, are all wrong.446 Because the first of these is belying one’s own sense of things, and has an air of distraction⁠—or however it is to act as if that was the least and most trifling of all transactions in life, which is certainly one of the greatest and most delicate. And to offend in any of the other ways is to behave as if the end of marriage was not what it is; as if no such league had been made between the persons married, as has been made, actually, and solemnly, and is still subsisting between them; as if they were not possessed each of the other; their fortunes not interwoven; nor their children so equally related to them, as they are; and therefore the misbehavior, being repugnant to truth, is a sin against it, and the mighty Patron of it.

If the most express and solemn contracts, upon which persons, when they marry, do so far depend as, in confidence of their being religiously observed, to alter quite their condition, begin a new thread of life, and risk all their fortune and happiness: I say, if such sacred compacts as these are allowed to be broken, there is an end of all faith; the obligation of oaths (not more binding than marriage vows) ceases; no justice can be administered; and then what a direful influence must this have upon the affairs of mankind, upon that and other accounts?447

Allowance, by section IV ought to be made for inabilities, and involuntary failings. A person’s age, health, estate, or other circumstances may be such, and without any fault, that he or she cannot do what they would; or perhaps instead of that, one of them may come to want the pity and assistance of the other. In this case (which requires the philosophy and submission proper in afflictions) it is the duty of the one not only to bear with, but also to comfort, and do what may be done for the other. This is part of the happiness proposed, which consists not only in positive pleasures, but also in lessening pains and wants, while the pair have each in the other a refuge at hand.

Note: I have designedly forborn to mention that authority of a husband over his wife which is usually given to him⁠—not only by private writers, but even by laws⁠—because I think it has been carried much too high. I would have them live so far upon the level, as (according to my constant lesson) to be governed both by reason.448 If the man’s reason be stronger, or his knowledge and experience greater (as it is commonly supposed to be), the woman will be obliged upon that score to pay a deference, and submit to him.449

Having now considered the man and woman between themselves, I proceed in the order of nature to consider them as parents, and to see (in a few propositions following) how things will be carried between them and their children, as also between other relations, coming at first from the same bed, if truth and matters of fact (to be named, where the argument shall call for them) are not denied.

V. Parents ought to educate their children, take the best care of them they can, endeavor to provide for them, and be always ready to assist them. Because otherwise they do not carry themselves towards their children as being what they are: children and theirs; they do not do what they would desire to have done to themselves, were they again to pass through that feeble and tender state, or perhaps what has been done to them;450 and besides, they transgress the law established by nature for the preservation of the race, which, as things are, could not without a parental care and affection be continued⁠—a law which is in force among all the other tribes of animals, so far as there is occasion for it.

Not to do what is here required, is not barely to act against truth and nature, not only such an omission as is mentioned in section I, proposition V, but a heinous instance of cruelty. If anyone can deny this, let him better consider the case of an infant, neglected, helpless, and having nothing so much as to solicit for him but his cries and (that which will do but little in this world) his innocence; let him think what it would be to turn a child, though a little grown up, out of doors, destitute of everything, not knowing whither to fly,451 or what to do; and whether it is not the same thing if he be left to be turned out by anybody else hereafter, or (in general) to conflict with want and misery⁠—let him reflect a while upon the circumstances of poor orphans452 left unprovided for, to be abused by everybody,453 etc.⁠—and then let him say whether it is possible for a parent to be so void of bowels as not to be moved with these considerations, or what epithet he deserves if he is not. If any of them who have been thus abandoned and turned adrift have done well, those instances ought to be placed among particular providences: as when a vessel at sea, without pilot or sailor, happens to be blown into the port.

Not only the care, but the early care of parents is required, lest death should prevent them: death, which skips none, and surprises many. Not to remember this, and act accordingly, is in practice to contradict one of the most certain and obvious of all truths.

VI. In order to the good of children, their education, etc., there must be some authority over them lodged by nature in the parents: I mean, the nature of the case is such, as necessarily requires there should be in the parents an authority over their children in order to their good. At first if somebody did not nurse, feed, clothe, and take care of children, the interval between their first and last breath would be very short. They on whom it is incumbent to do this are undoubtedly their parents; to do this is their duty, by the foregoing proposition. But then they must do it as they can, and according to their judgment; and this is plainly an act of authority, to order and dispose of another according to one’s judgment, though it be done according to the best of one’s judgment.

As the child grows up, the case is still the same in some degree or other, till he arrives at the age reckoned mature (and very often longer). He is become able perhaps to walk by himself, but what path to choose he knows not⁠—cannot distinguish his safety and his danger, his advantages and disadvantages, nor, in general, good and evil⁠—he must be warned, and directed, and watched still by his parents, or somebody entrusted by them, or else it might have been possibly much better for him to have expired under the midwife’s hands, and prevented the effects of his own ignorance.

When he not only runs about, but begins to fancy himself capable of governing himself: by how much the more he thinks himself capable, by so much the less capable may he be, and the more may he want to be governed. The avenues of sense are opened, but the judgment and intellectual faculties are not ripened but with time and much practice. The world is not easily known by persons of adult abilities, and, when they become tolerably acquainted with it, yet they find things in it so intricate, dubious, difficult, that it is many times hard for them to resolve what measures are fittest to be taken: but they who are not (or but lately) past their nuts, cannot be supposed to have any extent of knowledge, or to be, if they are left to themselves, anything else but a prey to the villain who first seizes upon them. Instead of judgment and experience, we find commonly in youth such things as are remotest from them⁠—childish appetites, irregular passions, peevish and obstinate humors⁠—which require to be subdued, and taught to give way to wholesome counsels. Young people are not only obnoxious to their own humors and follies, but also to those of their companions. They are apt to hearken to them, and to imitate one and anothers misconduct; and thus folly mingles with folly, and increases prodigiously. The judgment, therefore, of the parents must still interpose, and preside, and guide through all these stages of infancy, childhood, and youth; according to their power, improving the minds of their children, breaking the strength of their inordinate passions, cultivating rude nature, forming their manners, and showing them the way which they ought to be found in.

These things are so in fact, and a parent cannot acquit himself of the duty imposed upon him in the preceding proposition, if he acts so as to deny them; but then he cannot act so as not to deny them (that is, so as to subdue the passions of the child, break his stomach, and cause him to mind his instructions) without some sort of discipline, and a proper severity (at least very rarely).454

To all this, and much more that might be urged, must be superadded that the fortunes of children, and their manner of setting out in the world, depending (commonly) upon their parents, their parents must upon this account be their directors, and govern their affairs.

Note 1: It appears now from the premises, that even parents have not properly a dominion over their children such as is intended in section VI, proposition V, from which this parental authority is a very different thing. This only respects the good of the children, and reaches not beyond the means which the parents, acting according to the best of their skill, abilities, and opportunities, find most conducive to that end; but dominion only respects the will of the lord, and is of the same extent with his pleasure. Parents may not, by virtue of this authority, command their children to do anything which is in itself evil⁠—and if they do, the children ought not to obey.455 Nor may they do anything what they please to them. They may not kill, or maim, or expose them,456 and when they come to be men or women, and are possessed of estates, which either their parents (or anybody else) have given them, or they have acquired by their own labor, management, or frugality, they have the same properties in these with respect to their parents, which they have with respect to other people: the parents have no more right to take them by force from them than the rest of the world have.457 So that what occurs in the place abovementioned remains firm, notwithstanding anything that may be objected from the case of parents and children. And moreover,

Note 2: They who found monarchy in paternal authority, gain little advantage with respect to despotic or absolute power. A power to be exercised for the good of subjects (like that of parents for the good of their children), and that principally where they are incapable of helping themselves, can only be derived from hence. The father of his country cannot by this way of reasoning be demonstrated to be the absolute lord458 of the lives, and limbs, and fortunes of the people, to dispose of them as he pleases.459 The authority of parents goes not this length. Besides, if a parent has an authority over his children, it does not follow that the eldest son should have the same authority, be it what it will, over his brothers and sisters; and much less, that the heir of the first parent should in succeeding generations have it over all the collaterals. The very relation between them soon vanishes, and comes at last in effect to nothing, and this notion with it.

VII. As parents are obliged to educate their children, etc., so children ought to consider parents as the immediate authors (authors under the first and great Cause460) of their being; or, to speak more properly, of their being born. I know children are apt (not very respectfully, or prudently) to say that their parents did not beget them for their sakes, whom they could not know before they were born, but for their own pleasure. But they who make this a pretext for their disobedience or disregard, have not sufficiently thought what pain, what trouble, how many frights and cares,461 what charges, and what self-denials parents undergo upon the score of their children⁠—and that all these, if parents only rushed into pleasure and consulted nothing else, might easily be avoided by neglecting them and their welfare.462 For as to those parents who do this, let them speak for themselves; I shall not be their advocate.

VIII. A great submission and many grateful acknowledgements, much respect and piety, are due from children to their parents. For if there is an authority in parents (as before) this must be answered by a proportionable submission on the other side, since an authority to which no obedience is due, is equal to no authority.

If the thought of annihilation be generally disagreeable, as it seems to be, then merely to be conscious of existence must have in it something desirable.463 And if so, our parents must be considered as the authors, or at least the instruments, of that good to us, whatever it is⁠—which cannot be done unless they are treated with distinction and great regard, being to us what no other is, or ever can be.

God, as the first cause of all beings, is often styled metaphorically, or in a large sense of the word, the Father of the world, or of us all, and, if we behave ourselves towards Him as being such, we cannot (according to section V, proposition XIX, no. 3) but adore Him. Something analogous, though in a low degree, to the case between God and his offspring there seems to be in the case between parents and their children. If that requires divine worship, this will demand a great respect and reverence.464 Nor can I believe that a child who does not honor his parent can have any disposition to worship his Creator.465 The precept of honoring parents, to be found in almost all nations and religions, seems to proceed from some such sentiment: for in books we meet with it commonly following, or rather adhering to, that of worshipping the Deity.466 In laying children under this obligation, they have all conspired, though scarce in anything else.467

The admonitions of a parent must be of the greatest weight with his children, if they do but remember that he has lived longer, and had repeated occasions to consider things and observe events; has cooler passions as he advances in years, and sees things more truly as they are; is able in a manner to predict what they themselves will desire to have done when they shall arrive at his age; may upon these accounts, ordinarily, be presumed to be a more competent judge than themselves;468 and lastly, from his relation to them must be more sincerely inclined to tell them truth than any other person in the world can be supposed to be.469 I say, if young people reflect well upon these things, they cannot in prudence, or even kindness to themselves, but pay the utmost deference to the advertisements and directions of a parent.

And to conclude: if parents want the assistance of their children, especially in the declension of their age and when they verge towards a helpless condition again, they cannot deny or withhold it, but they must at the same time deny to requite the care and tenderness shown by their parents towards them in their helpless and dangerous years; that is, without being ungrateful, and that is, without being unjust, if there be injustice in ingratitude.470 Nor (which is more still) can they do this without denying what they may in their turn require of their children.471 In effect, they do thus, by their actions, deny that to have been, which has been, and those things to be possible, which may be hereafter.

Not only bodily infirmities of parents, but such decays of their minds as may happen, ought to be pitied⁠—their little hastinesses and mistakes dissembled, and their defects supplied, decently.472

IX. That στοργὴ or affection on both sides, which naturally and regularly is in parents towards their children, and vicissim,473 ought to be observed and followed, when there is no reason to the contrary.

We have seen before, and it is evident from the terms, that sense ought to govern when reason does not interpose, i.e. when there is no reason why it should not. If then this στοργὴ or mutual affection be an inward sense of the case between parents and children, which, without much thinking upon it, is felt by them and sits upon their natures,474 it may be comprised in propositions XIV and XV of section III. But whether it is or not, the same may be said (which must be repeated in another place) of every affection, passion, inclination in general. For when there is no reason why we should not comply with them, their own very solicitation, and the agreeableness we apprehend to be in complying, are preponderating arguments. This must be true, if something is more than nothing, or that ought to be granted which there is no reason to deny. So that if this στοργὴ be only taken as a kind of attraction, or tendence, in the mere matter of parents and children, yet still this physical motion or sympathy ought not to be overruled, if there be not a good reason for it. On the contrary, it ought to be taken as a suggestion of nature, which should always be regarded when it is not superseded by something superior, that is, by reason. But further, here reason does not only not gainsay, by its silence and consent, and so barely leave its right of commanding to this bodily inclination; but it comes in strongly to abet and enforce it, as designed for a reasonable end: and therefore, not to act according to it is not to act according to reason, and to deny that to be which is,

X. The same is true of that affection which other relations naturally have, in some proportion or other, each for other. To this they ought to accommodate themselves where reason does not prohibit. The proof of this assertion is much the same with that of the foregoing mutatis mutandis.

The foundation of all natural relation is laid in marriage.475 For the husband and wife having solemnly attached themselves each to other, having the same children, interests, etc., become so intimately related as to be reckoned united: one flesh, and in the laws of nations many times, one person.476 Certainly they are such with respect to the posterity, who proceed from them jointly.477 The children of this couple are related between themselves by the mediation of the parents. For every one of them being of the same blood with their common parents, they are all of the same blood (truly consanguinei), the relations which they respectively bear to their parents meeting there as in their center. This is the nearest relation that can be,478 next to those of man and wife, parents and their children, who are immediately related by contact or rather continuity of blood, if one may speak so. The relation between the children of these children grows more remote and dilute, and in time wears out. For at every remove the natural tincture or sympathy may be supposed to be weakened, if for no other reason, yet for this: Every remove takes off half the common blood derived from the grandparents. For let C be the son of A and B, D the son of C, E of D, F of E; and let the relation of C to A and B be as 1: then the relation of D to A and B will be but ½, because C is but one of the parents of D, and so the relation of D to A and B is but the half of that, which C bears to them. By proceeding after the same manner it will be found, that the relation of E to A and B is ¼ (or half of the half), of F ⅛, and so on. So that the relation which descendents in a direct line have by blood to their grandparents, decreasing thus in geometrical proportion,479 the relation between them of collateral lines, which passes and is made out through the grandparents, must soon be reduced to an inconsiderable matter.480

If, then, we suppose this affection or sympathy⁠—when it is permitted to act regularly and according to nature, no reason intervening to exalt or abate it⁠—to operate with a strength nearly proportionable to the quantity or degree of relation, computed as above, we may perhaps nearly discern the degrees of that obligation which persons related lie under, to assist each other, from this motive.

But there are many circumstances and incidents in life capable of affecting this obligation, and altering the degrees of it. A man must weigh the wants of himself and his own family against those of his relations; he must consider their sex, their age, their abilities and opportunities, how capable they are of good offices, how they will take them, what use they will make of them, and the like. He, who designs to act agreeably to truth, may find many such things demanding his regard: some justly moving him to compassion, others holding back his hand. But, however, this may in general be taken as evident: that next after our parents and own offspring,481 nature directs us to be helpful in the first place to brothers and sisters, and then to other relations according to their respective distances in the genealogy of the family, preferably to all foreigners.482 And, though our power or opportunities of helping them in their wants should be but little, yet we ought to preserve our affection towards them, and a disposition to serve them, as far as we honestly and prudently can, and whenever the proper opportunity shall present itself. This nature and truth require.