PARENT AND CHILD. This re lation arises only from a legal marriage. The relation between parents and their illegitimate children is considered in the article BASTARD.
Parents are bound to maintain their legitimate children who are unable to maintain themselves owing to infancy or inability to work. This obligation ex tends to father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, if they are able to per form it. (43 Eliz. c. 2.) But such persons are only bound to furnish the children with the necessaries of life ; and the pe nalty incurred in case of refusal is only 20s. per month. A husband is now (4 & 5 Win. IV. c. 76) liable to maintain the children of his wife, born before marriage, whether they are legitimate or not, until they are of the age of sixteen, or until the death of his wife: If a parent deserts his children, the churchwardens and over seers may seize his goods and chattels, and receive his rents, to the amount men tioned in the justices' warrant, which must be obtained before such seizure is made.
Until recently, various acts existed which bore with exclusive severity on Popish and Jewish parents in respect of the education and maintenance of their children. These interferences with pa rental authority were in use throughout the United Kingdom, and their strin gency increased, so recently as by 1 Anne, st. 1, c. 30, which empowered the lord chancellor to compel Jewish parents who refused to maintain their Protestant children in a style suitable to the for tune of the parents, and the age and education of the children. But the Criminal Law Commissioners recom mended the repeal of those acts touch ing the compulsory maintenance of children, observing, that such laws appeared to be "objectionable as in terfering with the rights of property, as liable to abuse on the part of young per sons, and as calculated to create dissen sion in families." Conformably with these recommendations, the statutes have been repealed by the 9 and 10 Victoria, c. 59, passed in 1846. The law deei not make any provision in the ease of a child who has become a con veil from Protestantism or has renounced Christianity.
Parents are not bound to make any provision for their children after their death. Every man, and every woman who is capable of disposing of her pro perty by will, may dispose of it as they please ; a freeman of London is under some limitations as to the power of dis posing of his personality by will, which limitations are in favour of his wife and chiMren. [WIFE.) A pareut and child
may aid each other in a law-suit by pay ing fees, without being guilty of main tenance, if they have no expectation of repayment.
Parents are not legally bound to give any education to their children, nor are they under any restrictions as to the kind of education which they may give. Certain penalties were imposed by statute (1 Jac. I. c. 4; 3 Jac. 1. c. 5) on a person who sent a child under his government beyond seas, either to prevent his good education in England or for the purpose of placing him in a Popish college or being instructed in the Popish religion ; and further penalties and disabilities were imposed both on the person sending and the person sent, by the 3 Car. I. c. 2. These penal and disabling statutes are made of non-effect by the 31 Geo. III. c. 32, in favour of any Roman Catholic who took the oath therein prescribed; and probably these statutes may be considered as repealed.
The power of a parent over his child ren continues until the age of twenty-one, at which age they become emancipated; and if a parent die, leaving a child under age, he may appoint a guardian to such child till the age of twenty-one, by a will executed pursuant to 1 Viet. c. 26. A mo ther has no power over her children. A person under age, except a widower or widow, cannot marry without the father's consent, or such consent as is required by the Marriage Act. [MARRIAGE, p. 332d A child under age may acquire pro perty by gift ; and if a father is the trus tee of his child's estate, he must account to the child when he comes of age, like any other trustee. So long as a child who is under age lives with and is supported by the father, the father is entitled to re wive the reward of the child's labour. When a child has a fortune of his own, and the father is not able to maintain him suitably to such fortune, a court of equity will allow the father a competent sum for maintenance out of the child's estate ; but a father is not entitled to any such allow ance in respect of costs incurred by him for his child's maintenance before he ob tains such order of court for mainte nance.