Parental Rights Over Children’s Religious Practice

From two interesting (and little-known) 1840s American cases that point in somewhat different directions.

[1.] In Commonwealth v. Armstrong, 1 Pa. L.J. Rep. 146 (Ct. Quarter Sess. Lycoming County 1842) (Lewis, J., apparently writing for three judges), the father threatened a Baptist minister with violence for baptizing the father’s 17-year-old daughter (who had already been baptized Presbyterian, and whom the father had warned the minister not to baptize). The court concluded that the father had acted illegally, and ordered him to put up a $500 bond to assure his future good behavior. But because the decision of who should pay court costs was discretionary, the court concluded that it should evaluate the complainant minister’s culpability as well:

If [the minister] has interfered with the lawful authority of the father over his own offspring, in its minority, and therefore provoked him in his excited feelings, to meditate the personal injury, and to make the threats complained of, it would be just that the [minister] should pay the costs which his own first wrongful act had occasioned.

And the court concluded the minister did act wrongly:

If [a father] should come to the conclusion that the attendance of his child upon the ministration of any particular religious instructor is not conducive to its welfare, he may prohibit such attendance, and confine it [the child] to such religious teachers as he believes will be most likely to give correct instruction and to secure its welfare here, and its eternal happiness in the world to come.

He cannot force it to adopt opinions contrary to the dictates of its own conscience, but he has a right to its time and its attention during its minority, for the purpose of enabling him to make the effort incumbent on him as a father, of “training it up in the way it should go.” He may not compel it, against its own convictions of right, to become a member of any religious denomination; but after it has been initiated, with its own free will, into the religious communion in which its parent belongs, he may lawfully restrain it, during its legal infancy, from violating the religious obligations incurred in its behalf, by placing itself under the control of a minister whose opinions do not meet its parent’s approbation.

The court went on to generally discuss, with extensive reference to various Biblical verses, the parents’ authority over their children, and concludes that this authority is legally recognized:

Shall any man, high or low, be allowed to invade the domestic sanctuary—to disregard the parental authority established by the Almighty, to set at nought the religious obligations already incurred in behalf of the child at its baptism—to seduce it away from its filial obedience—or even to participate in its disregard of parental authority, for the purpose of estranging it from the faith of its parents or introducing it into religious [denominations] different from that to which its parents belong? God forbid that the noblest and holiest feeling of the human heart should be thus violated—that the endearing relation of parent and child should be thus disturbed—that the harmony of the domestic circle should be thus broken up—and that the family altar itself should be thus ruthlessly rent in twain and trodden in the dust! …

[The minister’s] proceeding cannot be justified under any claim founded upon the rights of conscience. The child whose conscience stimulates it into open rebellion against the lawful authority of its father, stands more in need of proper instruction and discipline under that authority than any other.

If every child, under a claim founded upon the supposed rights of conscience, were allowed to carry into effect every decision of its immature judgment, where is that to end? Who shall prescribe limits to the crude conceptions of its youth and inexperience?—Shall it be allowed, under this pretence, to violate the law of God? to repudiate the Christian religion? to become a Jew or a Mohammedan? Or, retaining the Christian name, shall it be allowed to mingle with the battle-axe community, who make it matter of conscience to disregard the holy institution of marriage? Or, upon this pretence, shall the beloved daughter of a Christian parent, in a moment of delusion, and in the tender years of her minority, be allowed to become one of the secret wives of the Mormon prophet? …

It is the duty of the parent to regulate the conscience of the child, by proper attention to its education; and there is no security for the offspring during the tender years of its minority but in obedience to the authority of its parents, in all things not injurious to its health or morals….

[2.] In Commonwealth v. Sigman, 3 Pa. L.J. Rep. 252 (Ct. Quarter Sess. Lehigh County 1843) (Banks, P.J.), a father went to a Methodist Episcopal Church to bring back his 15-year-old daughter, and in the process disturbed the congregation, and was ejected by force. He then brought charges against the person who ejected him.

The court had a lot of interesting things to say about the right to eject trespassers with force, about Christianity being part of American law (a view that many courts expressed at the time), about the law banning disturbance of places of worship, and more. But here is a passage that deals with a similar issue to that in Armstrong:

[P]arental authority … is always for the good of the children, and therefore is not absolute in all things, or despotic. It must at all times be exercised in subservience to the laws, and to the rights of others.

A father has no rightful authority to compel his child to prostitute its person, or its morals, to the commission of crime. He dare not enforce it to commit acts of idolatry, or blasphemy.

He dare not force it to abandon the paths of innocence and virtue, and compel it to worship at a temple dedicated to vice, corruption, and abomination; at a temple dedicated to Dagon or Moloch. Against any such parental control, our constitution and laws would at once interpose their authority, and wrest the child from the dangers of such false teachings, and from the influence of such unholy opinions and practices. This is sufficient to make it most obvious that all parental authority must, in every well regulated Christian community, be subject to its institutions and its laws….

In accordance with the foregoing principles, we find in our state constitution the following provision: “All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences. No man can of right be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any ministry against his consent. No human authority can in any case whatever control or interfere with the rights of conscience; and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious establishments or modes of worship.” …

What is parental authority, but human authority? This authority is derived from law, and might be enlarged or restricted by law. Could any law-making power, under our constitution, confer upon parents the right to control or interfere with the rights of conscience of a minor child who had arrived at the years of discretion? This is at once coming right up to the question. Would it not be an exercise of human authority?  Most certainly it would.

No one has yet been hardy enough to say, that a human being had no conscience until he was twenty-one years of age…. I therefore conclude that the father has no right to control, or interfere with the rights of conscience of such minor child in relation to the worship of Almighty God….

It is not age, nor infancy, that is protected, but the dictates of conscience on this one subject [of the worship of Almighty God]. This consists in the secret testimony of the soul, which dictates the worship of Almighty God as a solemn duty, and the mode and manner of this worship. Have those who are under the age of twenty-one years this inward testimony, and working of the Spirit, approving of what is right, and condemning what is wrong?

At the age of fourteen years, minors are presumed to be competent to give testimony in courts of justice. Under that age they will be admitted as witnesses, if they appear to have a proper degree of knowledge and understanding, and have a just sense of the wickedness and danger of false swearing…. [P]ersons under the age of twenty­one … are and ever have been admitted into full membership and communion in all churches, of every denomination of Christians, and indeed in some of them they are regularly commissioned to preach the gospel….

If a father were found beating a son or daughter, who was twenty years of age, every time he found him or her reading the Scriptures, or engaged in secret or public prayer, would any one approve of it? Certainly not. Would not the constitution of the country protect them from such acts of cruelty and such barbarous control over their consciences? I cannot doubt it.

Whenever a minor arrives at the age of discretion, feels and knows the existence of Almighty God, is acquainted with his attributes, his goodness, justice, and perfections; knows that he directs and governs the affairs of men, inspects their actions, distinguishes the good from the bad, loves and approves of the former, is displeased with and pities the latter, and will reward the one and punish the other; and understands the glorious scheme of divine faith and salvation, as declared in the Scriptures and exhibited in all the works of God, and executed through his whole administration, he then has a conscience capable of dictating his duties in relation to the worship of Almighty God, which “no human authority can in any case whatever, control or interfere with.