Template:Pater Familias
Pater Familias
The family was and is a political unit. Within the manu[1] of the family neither the Wife nor the Husband could sue each other for they are counted as one person, one body.[2]
"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)
The child is bound within the manu of the family. The manus is a Latin word for the power of the pater familias over his wife and his sons’ wives. Even in its prior history manu as a Sanskrit word meant the primordial Father of the human race and sovereign of the earth. These concepts fundamentally reach into the antiquity of man’s history and are only supplanted by the twisted thoughts of an usurping substitute for God’s plan.
Some might think it oppressive that a patriarch would have such power and authority within his given family, but is it any more desirable to be oppressed by tribal or national groups? Governments that eat out the substance of men in peace and march millions of minions to murderous deaths in war cannot be a superior or benevolent master to that of our natural parents.
God dispersed dominion among the fathers of mankind. Even with Jesus he established no office of father to rule man in mass. A child is within that power until the Father releases him or is released from life itself. There is no right of usurpation by any.
"The child is incapable, in his private rights, of any power or dominion; in every other respect he is capable of legal rights."[3]
The child has a capacity for acquiring legal rights. He could acquire by contract, for instance; but everything that he acquires, is acquired for his father. Without emancipation the child was not free of his father’s power and was also not sui juris.
In Latin the words are from sui meaning of one's own and juris, the genitive of jus, meaning right or law. Sui Juris is one who is capable of managing one's own affairs. Only the patriarch of a family is sui juris. The first civil governments based their civil powers on the law of the family. The individual citizen would be able to acquire legal rights by contract but would not be sui juris.
While a natural Father may abuse his children if he lacks love for them there is a natural governor within a natural society if the parents are dependent upon the good will of their family, their children, and charitable practices of their neighbor for their protection and care in their infirmities and old age.[4] When the State or its equivalent becomes the Father of the person their is little or no governor to moderate its power of the individual person. Like the ancient soulless Golem the corporate State may become a soulless beast and master making choice and regulations that has its interest more than the interest of the children.
- ↑ "In mea manu" means "in my hand." The Family and all it owned was a free unite or entity under God.
- ↑ Matthew 19:6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
- ↑ Savigny, System, &c. ii.52.
- ↑ Exodus 20:12 "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee."