ies, that the life which they have bestowed shall be
supported and preserved. And thus the children will have a perfect
_right_ of receiving maintenance from their parents. And the president
Montesquieu[c] has a very just observation upon this head: that the
establishment of marriage in all civilized states is built on this
natural obligation of the father to provide for his children; for that
ascertains and makes known the person who is bound to fulfil this
obligation: whereas, in promiscuous and illicit conjunctions, the
father is unknown; and the mother finds a thousand obstacles in her
way;--shame, remorse, the constraint of her sex, and the rigor of
laws;--that stifle her inclinations to perform this duty: and besides,
she generally wants ability.

[Footnote b: L. of N. l. 4. c. 11.]

[Footnote c: Sp. L. l. 23. c. 2.]

THE municipal laws of all well-regulated states have taken care to
enforce this duty: though providence has done it more effectually than
any laws, by implanting in the breast of every parent that natural
[Greek: storge], or insuperable degree of affection, which not even
the deformity of person or mind, not even the wickedness, ingratitude,
and rebellion of children, can totally suppress or extinguish.

THE civil law[d] obliges the parent to provide maintenance for his
child; and, if he refuses, "_judex de ea re cognoscet_." Nay, it
carries this matter so far, that it will not suffer a parent at his
death totally to disinherit his child, without expressly giving his
reason for so doing; and there are fourteen such reasons reckoned
up[e], which may justify such disinherison. If the parent alleged no
reason, or a bad, or false one, the child might set the will aside,
_tanquam testamentum inofficiosum_, a testament contrary to the
natural duty of the parent. And it is remarkable under what colour the
children were to move for relief in such a case: by suggesting that
the parent had lost the use of his reason, when he made the
_inofficious_ testament. And this, as Puffendorf observes[f], was not
to bring into dispute the testator's power of disinheriting his own
offspring; but to examine the motives upon which he did it: and, if
they were found defective in reason, then to set them aside. But
perhaps this is going rather too far: every man has, or ought to have,
by the laws of society, a power over his own property: and, as Grotius
very well distinguishes[g], natural right obliges to give a
_necess