is wife[o].
Yet the lower rank of people, who were always fond of the old common
law, still claim and exert their antient privilege: and the courts of
law will still permit a husband to restrain a wife of her liberty, in
case of any gross misbehaviour[p].

[Footnote h: _Ibid._ 130.]

[Footnote i: Moor. 874.]

[Footnote k: F.N.B. 80.]

[Footnote l: _Nov._ 117. _c._ 14. & Van Leeuwen _in loc._]

[Footnote m: 1 Sid. 113. 3 Keb. 433.]

[Footnote n: 2 Lev. 128.]

[Footnote o: Stra. 1207.]

[Footnote p: Stra. 478. 875.]

THESE are the chief legal effects of marriage during the coverture;
upon which we may observe, that even the disabilities, which the wife
lies under, are for the most part intended for her protection and
benefit. So great a favourite is the female sex of the laws of
England.

CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH.

OF PARENT AND CHILD.

THE next, and the most universal relation in nature, is immediately
derived from the preceding, being that between parent and child.

CHILDREN are of two sorts; legitimate, and spurious, or bastards: each
of which we shall consider in their order; and first of legitimate
children.

I. A LEGITIMATE child is he that is born in lawful wedlock, or within
a competent time afterwards. "_Pater est quem nuptiae demonstrant_,"
is the rule of the civil law[a]; and this holds with the civilians,
whether the nuptials happen before, or after, the birth of the child.
With us in England the rule is narrowed, for the nuptials must be
precedent to the birth; of which more will be said when we come to
consider the case of bastardy. At present let us enquire into, 1. The
legal duties of parents to their legitimate children. 2. Their power
over them. 3. The duties of such children to their parents.

[Footnote a: _Ff._ 2. 4. 5.]

1. AND, first, the duties of parents to legitimate children: which
principally consist in three particulars; their maintenance, their
protection, and their education.

THE duty of parents to provide for the _maintenance_ of their children
is a principle of natural law; an obligation, says Puffendorf[b], laid
on them not only by nature herself, but by their own proper act, in
bringing them into the world: for they would be in the highest manner
injurious to their issue, if they only gave the children life, that
they might afterwards see them perish. By begetting them therefore
they have entered into a voluntary obligation, to endeavour, as far as
in them l