§. 69. The first part, then, of paternal power, or rather duty, which is
education, belongs so to the father that it terminates at a certain season.
When the business of education is over it ceases of itself, and is also
alienable before. For a man may put the tuition of his son in other hands; and
he that has made his son an apprentice to another has discharged him, during
that time, of a great part of his obedience, both to himself and to his mother.
But all the duty of honour, the other part, remains nevertheless entire to
them; nothing can cancel that. It is so inseparable from them both, that the
father's authority cannot dispossess the mother of this right, nor can any man
discharge his son from honouring her that bore him. But both these are very far
from a power to make laws, and enforcing them with penalties that may reach
estate, liberty, limbs, and life. The power of commanding ends with nonage, and
though after that honour and respect, support and defence, and whatsoever
gratitude can oblige a man to, for the highest benefits he is naturally capable
of be always due from a son to his parents, yet all this puts no sceptre into
the father's hand, no sovereign power of commanding. He has no dominion over
his son's property or actions, nor any right that his will should prescribe to
his son's in all things; however, it may become his son in many things, not
very inconvenient to him and his family, to pay a deference to it.
