With reſpect to marriage, though after one and twenty a parent ſeems to have no right to withhold his conſent on any account; yet twenty years of ſolicitude call for a turn, and the ſon ought, at leaſt, to promiſe not to marry for two or three years, ſhould the object of his choice not entirely meet with the approbation of his firſt friend.
But, reſpect for parents is, generally ſpeaking, a much more debaſing principle; it is only a ſelfiſh reſpect for property. The father who is blindly obeyed, is obeyed from ſheer weakneſs, or from motives that degrade the human character.
A great proportion of the miſery that wanders, in hideous forms around the world, is allowed to riſe from the negligence of parents; and ſtill theſe are the people who are moſt tenacious of what they term a natural right, though it be ſubverſive of the birth-right of man, the right of acting according to the direction of his own reaſon.
I have already very frequently had occasion to obſerve, that vicious or indolent people are always eager to profit by enforcing arbitrary privileges; and, generally, in the ſame proportion as they neglect the diſcharge of the duties which alone render the privileges reaſonable. This is at the bottom a dictate of common ſenſe, or the inſtinct of ſelf-defence, peculiar to ignorant weakneſs; reſembling that inſtinct, which makes a fiſh muddy the water it ſwims in to allude its enemy, inſtead of boldly facing it in the clear ſtream.
