Rights in the Family
Section Two - Parental Society
Introduction
1444. Conjugal society generates within itself another society: parental society. The full union of two human individuals of different sex called conjugal society or matrimony was structured by the author of nature to have two levels: 1. habitual and continual union or 2. actual union (cf. 1095). The effect, when actual union fully unites the bodies of the spouses according to their natural fittingness, is to give life to new human beings (cf. 1063). Children, therefore, are a result of the full, actual union of their begetters, and are as it were an addition and extension of their parents. Through children, domestic society is increased in number and becomes two beautifully interwoven societies: that of the spouses, and that of the spouses with the children (parental society).
1445. New jural relationships now begin: 1. between parents themselves relative to the offspring; 2. between parents and their offspring; 3. between the children themselves. These relationships are the object of Right governing parental society, which we still have to explain. We shall do this briefly. A great deal of parental Right has been dealt with in individual Right to avoid undue separation of closely related matters (cf. RI, 528-863, 1294-1449).