c. 33, which declared all marriages by license, when either of the

parties was under the age of twenty-one years, if celebrated without publication of banns, or without the consent of the father or unmarried mother, or guardian to be absolutely null and void.[1484]

There is thus a certain resemblance between the family institution of savage tribes and that of the most advanced races. Among both, the grown-up son, and frequently the grown-up daughter, enjoys a liberty unknown among peoples at an intermediate stage of civilization. There are, however, these vital differences:—that children in civilized countries are in no respect the property of their parents; that they are born with certain rights guaranteed to them by society; that the birth of children gives parents no rights over them other than those which conduce to the children’s happiness. These ideas, essential as they are to true civilization, are not many centuries old. It is a purely modern conception the French Encyclopedist expresses when he says, “Le pouvoir paternel est plutôt un devoir qu’un pouvoir.”[1485]