The Spirit of Laws

ISBN: 9781440067457 出版年：2016 页码：457 Charles de Secondat Montesquieu Forgotten Books

Among brutes this is an obligation which the mother can generally perform; but it is much more extensive among men. Their children indeed have reason; but this comes only by slow degrees. It is not sufficient to nourish them; we must also di rect them: they can already live; but they cannot govern them selves. Illicit conjunctions contribute but little to the propagation of the species. The father, who is under a natural obligation to nourish and educate his children, is not then fixed; and the mother, with whom the obligation remains, finds a thousand obstacles from shame, remorse, and constraint of her sex and the rigor of laws; and besides, she generally wants the means. Women who have submitted to public prostitution cannot have the convenience of educating their children: the trouble of education is incompatible with their station; and they are so corrupt that they can have no protection from the law.