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.

Comments

[F.D. Wolf]

In a similar vein, in Prieto v. St. Alphonsus Convent of Mercy, 27 So. 153 (La. 1900), the Supreme Court of Louisiana granted a writ of habeas corpus to a mother whose 17-year-old daughter was studying to be a nun in a convent, even though it appeared that the girl was there of her own volition and was free to come or go as she pleased. (One justice dissented because, in his opinion, the daughter was "not in the custody of anyone", and habeas relief was only appropriate for "someone restrained in some way or deprived of his liberty." Id. at 173 (Breaux, J., dissenting).)

[W]e arise from the study of the question with a perfect conviction that a minor, under the age of twenty-one years, remains under the authority and control of his father, if living, and of his mother, if he be dead; and that, during his minority, unless sooner emancipated, he is without capacity under our Code to leave the paternal domicile permanently and select for himself another domicile or residence.

This is a fundamental principle that lies at the very foundation of society, and was intended to support and maintain the exercise of paternal authority in the family and the home; and to guard and protect the children of the family until their minds should become sufficiently cultivated, and their judgments sufficiently matured, to enable them to make judicious and proper selections of places of abode for themselves.

The precise limit of time is fixed by law, and it cannot, in any case, be either enlarged or diminished by evidence, however cogent, or by argument however persuasive.

Id. at 169.

I believe that is a sound principle to which American courts have adhered generally and relatively consistently.

[wvattorney13]

Interesting cases. I wonder how much the old distinction that the common law places those in the age 14 to age 21 category played a role in these cases. People that age were in a sort of a legal twilight zone. They had more rights than younger children but not as much as adults.

The first case is interesting and apart from the religious freedom angle would not be tolerated today. The father was wrong, but the minister had it coming? That is foreign to modern law. But then again, the court only made him post a surety.

The second case the father trespassed and interrupted a church service. I imagine that theater caused the court to act more harshly than it otherwise would have. In this case, I don't think any court would have intervened if the father had grounded the daughter or otherwise forbade her from going to the church and forced him to go to his own church. The court blandly concludes that he could not beat her for going to church but doesn't comment about other parental authority.

It doesn't say but it seems under the facts in the case that dad didn't go to church and the daughter was choosing to do so on her own. That likely influenced the decision.

[Dr. Ed 2]

In the first case the minister was a Baptist and it was 1843.
The Baptists were not popular in the 19th Century, particularly with the Methodists.

First, the Methodists came from the Anglican tradition that had a lot of the Catholic structure, i.e. Bishops, etc.. The Baptists has split off from the Puritans and hence had a tradition of individual congregational governance. (The Baptists didn't think that the Puritans were strict enough.) Hence a Baptist minister was independent in a way that a Methodist minister wasn't.

Second, the Baptists believed in (a) immersion baptism -- dunking underwater and not the minister making a cross on the forehead with a wet finger, And (b) adult baptism, not infant baptism.
This was a big issue in the 20th Century, a bigger one in the 19th.
Throw in how revealing a simple cotton gown, when wet, would be on a 17-year-old girl, and you can see why Daddy wasn't happy.

Third was predestinationalism, and without getting into how it isn't completely believed, it's the concept that it's already decided who is going to heaven and who is going to hell before people are even born. Baptists believed this while Methodists believed in free will.

[MollyGodiva]

Parents forcing teens to practice a religion that they don't believe in is quite distasteful. No one should have the ability to force their religion onto others.

[Stupid Government Tricks]

Applying 2025 standards to 1840 cases is quite distasteful.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Actually, religious instruction is a parental right today.
Nazi social workers don't like that, but it is.

[ReaderY]

Both cases were decided under Barron v. Baltimore, at a time when states were not bound by the Bill of Rights and were free to establish state religions and interfere with free exercise if they wanted to. Some states, for example, prohibited Catholics and other non-Protestants from holding public office.

So these cases aren’t exactly relevant to understanding what the Religion Clauses mean.

Interesting the use of modern gender-free language. A minor is referred to as an “it.”

[wvattorney13]

PA has its own free exercise clause. William Penn founded the colony for religious freedom. There is no reason to believe that a judge would have decided the case differently if he was looking at the 1A.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The Puritan church was taxpayer supported in Massachusetts until 1855.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Anyone really interested in this issue should look into why Northampton (MA) fired Jonathan Edwards. History has obscured most of the details but it was the young people committing suicide before they could sin that freaked out the congregation.