And accordingly we see the positive law of God
everywhere joins them together without distinction, when it commands
the obedience of children: "Honour thy father and thy mother" (Exod.
20. 12); "Whosoever curseth his father or his mother" (Lev. 20. 9);
"Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father" (Lev. 19. 3);
"Children, obey your parents" (Eph. 6. 1), etc., is the style of the
Old and New Testament.
53. Had but this one thing been well considered without looking
any deeper into the matter, it might perhaps have kept men from
running into those gross mistakes they have made about this power of
parents, which however it might without any great harshness bear the
name of absolute dominion and regal authority, when under the title of
"paternal" power, it seemed appropriated to the father; would yet have
sounded but oddly, and in the very name shown the absurdity, if this
supposed absolute power over children had been called parental, and
thereby discovered that it belonged to the mother too. For it will but
very ill serve the turn of those men who contend so much for the
absolute power and authority of the fatherhood, as they call it,
that the mother should have any share in it.
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