LSU Law: Digest of 1808

CHAPTER V - OF PATERNAL AUTHORITY

SECTION I - OF THE DUTIES OF PARENTS TOWARDS THEIR LEGITIMATE CHILDREN, AND OF THE DUTIES OF LEGITIMATE CHILDREN TOWARDS THEIR PARENTS

Art. 36. A child, whatever be his or her age, owes honor and respect to his or her father and mother.

Art. 37. A child remains under the authority of his or her father and mother, until his or her majority or emancipation.

Art. 38. As long as the child remains under the authority of his or her father and mother, he or she is bound to obey them in every thing which is not contrary to religion and the laws.

Art. 39. A child under the age of puberty, cannot quit the paternal house, without permission of his or her father and mother, who have a right to correct him or her, provided it be done in a reasonable manner.

Art. 40. The father and mother have a right to appoint tutors to their children, as is directed in the title of minors and to transmit to them their authority, to be by them exercised, after the death of the father and mother.

Art. 41. Fathers and mothers may, during their life, delegate a part of their authority to teachers, schoolmasters and other persons to whom they entrust their children for their education, such as the power of restraint and correction, as far as may be necessary to answer the purposes for which they employ them.

Art. 42. Fathers and mother shall have, during marriage, the enjoyment of the estate of their children, until their majority or emancipation.

Art. 43. The obligations resulting from this enjoyment shall be:
1^st, The same obligations to which usufructuaries are subjected.
2^d, To nourish, to maintain and to educate their children according to their situation in life.

Art. 44. This usufruct, in case of separation from bed and board shall take place in toto, in favor of either father or mother who shall have sued for such separation and shall be subjected to the conditions prescribed in the preceding article.

Art. 45. This usufruct shall not extend to any estate which the children may acquire by their own labor and industry, whilst they live apart from their father and mother, nor to such estate as is given or left them under the express condition that the father and mother shall not enjoy such usufruct.

Art. 46. Fathers and mothers, by the very act of marrying, contract together the obligation of nourishing, maintaining and educating their children.

Art. 47. A child has no right to sue either his father or mother, for the purpose of obtaining a marriage settlement or other advancement.

Art. 48. Children are bound to maintain their father and mother and other ascendants who are in need, and the relatives in the direct ascending line, are likewise bound to maintain their needy descendants; this obligation being reciprocal.

Art. 49. By alimony, we understand what is necessary for the nourishment, lodging and clothing of the person who claims it.

Art. 50. Alimony shall be granted in proportion to the wants of the person requiring it, and the circumstances of those who are to pay it.

Art. 51. When the person who gives or receives alimony, is replaced in such a situation, that the one can no longer give, or that the other is no longer in need of it, the circumstances of either party are materially changed; then the discharge from or reduction of said alimony may be sued for and granted.

Art. 52. If the person whose duty it is to furnish alimony, shall prove, that either he or she is unable to pay the same, the judge may after examining into the case, order that such person shall receive in his or her house and there nourish and maintain the person to whom he or she owes alimony.

Art. 53. The judge shall pronounce likewise whether the father or mother, who may offer to receive, nourish and maintain in his or her house, the child to who he or she may owe alimony, shall be dispensed in that case, from the obligation of paying for it elsewhere.

Art. 54. Fathers and mothers and other ascendants who die intestate, transmit their estate to their children or grand children, and if they make a will, they are bound to leave to them at least a certain portion of their estate determined by law and called the legitime unless they may have just causes for disinheriting them.
This obligation is reciprocal on the part of the children towards their father and mother and other ascendants.

Art. 55. Fathers and mothers owe protection to their children, and of course they may as long as their children are under their authority, appear for them in court in every kind of civil suit in which they may be interested, and they may likewise accept any donation made to them.

Art. 56. Fathers and mothers may justify themselves in an action began against them, for assault and battery, if they have acted in defence of the persons of their children.

Art. 57. Fathers and mothers are answerable for the offences, or quasi offences, committed by their children in the cases prescribed under the title of the quasi contracts and quasi crimes or offences.

Art. 58. On their side children ought to be security for their father and mother and other ascendants, to deliver them out of prison, by obliging themselves to represent them or to pay for them, as their circumstances may allow.
They ought to redeem them if they have the means, when they are captives.
They ought to render them all the assistance which their situation may require, if they should have the misfortune to fall in a state of insanity.
They ought not to marry, if minors, without the consent of the father and mother.
And if they neglect to fulfil any of these duties, they are liable to be deservedly disinherited.

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