Lines Crossed: Defining Parental Authority

The reason why Pauli wanted to bring the above-cited antique fragment to his sixteenth century reader’s attention was quite likely the topicality of parenting in his own time. Bad parenting was often introduced as the reason for diverse societal problems.

However, despite the fact that early modern society was ready to accept many forms of physical suffering, the parental right to discipline children by no means permitted unlimited violence. On the contrary, it was only accepted within certain limitations. The beating of a child without a justified reason was not allowed, and disciplinary methods were not supposed to leave permanent marks on the child’s body. In reality, of course, parental correction fell into a grey area in terms of both legal regulation and general opinion on morality (Toivo 2013, 331; Gowing 2005, 79; Hassan Jansson 2002, 53–57, 91, 116–119; Hassan Jansson 2006, 145–150; Osterberg and Lindstrom 1988, 102, 141–143; Walker 2003, 49; Rosenberg 2004, 170). Some may have thought that whipping a child never caused any good; others considered it a natural duty of parenthood.

In early modern reality, the boundaries between private and public spheres of life were different from today. The power of defining the limits of exaggerated disciplinary correction was primarly in the hands of the parents, and the opportunities for the authorities to govern unacceptable forms of familial life in criminal courts or through social control were rather poor (Schilling 2004, 25–29; Heijden 2004, 55; Classen 2007, 188; Matikainen and Lidman 2014). However, ungrounded violence and cruelty were culturally and socially not accepted, as also stated in the advice books. In the eyes of contemporaries, an aggressive man chasing his children around to hit them for the smallest reason was certainly not the picture of a good father figure. To promote the desired qualities in the head of a household, powerful images of men behaving badly were spread in various contemporary texts. In the mid-sixteenth century, the first Protestant archbishop in Sweden, Laurentius Petri, took part in this learned discussion. According to Petri, like so many other authors of the period, desirable masculinity could quite simply not be demonstrated through losing one’s temper. Cursing, shouting, breaking household objects in anger, and hitting family members were acts of foolishness and cruelty (Liliequist 2011, 4–5). The German writer Friedrich Dedekind expressed similar views in his popular satirical book of manners called the Grobianus (Dedekind 1551).

For his part, Albertinus emphasised that every man should learn the skill of patience (patientia) and not anger too readily (Albertinus 1602, 3:161r; Albertinus 1638, 2:197–198). In a similar manner, the French Catholic priest Jean-Baptiste de Glen, whose German translations were also read in Sweden, instructed men to avoid barbaric behaviour at home.

The Swedish churchman Petrus Johannis Tornewall had his own opinion: hitting and whipping were of no real profit, as they would only increase bitterness among those being disciplined (Tornewall 1694, Chapter 1). In an ideal world, it was a man’s duty to be an exemplar to his household members. According to the theologian Oloff Swensson Lemwijk, it was more a sign of a man’s failure than his power if he let things go far enough that he was obliged to use physical violence (Liliequist 2011, 5; Lemwijk 1674). These nuances are quite in tune with the contemporary changes in legal thinking, especially concerning the justification and goals of punishments in the course of the seventeenth century. The early Enlightenment questioned the rationality of judicial shaming, as it saw this to increase violence rather than solve any issues related to criminality.

However, intervening in familial matters undermined the very values of social order, and this promoted a culture of silence around what was really going on in households. It seems likely that even cases of excessive discipline were not actively prosecuted (Walker 2003, 64). Therefore, an ideal father would maintain and strengthen his authority by acting calmly and firmly; he would not lower himself to the level of animals. For his boys, he was supposed to be a Christian role model maintaining the patriarchal order; for his girls, he was supposed to be a true guardian of their safety and happiness. The mother would stand by his side in pursuing these aims. In the end, the trick was to be able to demonstrate parental power without the need to resort to the birch. Still, in some situations, physical disciplinary correction was expected of parents, and it was left uncriminalised in the letter of the law.