Morning Star

Family Love. The spirit of family is the second soul of humanity. Modern legislators have too much forgotten this. They think only of nations and individuals. They omit the family, that only source of a pure and healthy population; the sanctuary of traditions and manners, in which all the social virtues acquire fresh vigor. Legislation, even since the introduction of Christianity, has been barbarous in this respect. It repulses man from the spirit of family, instead of encouraging it in him. It interdicts, to one-half of mankind. wife, child, the possession of a home, or a field. It owes these blessings to all as soon as they arrive at manhood. It ought to have interdicted them only to culprits. A family is society in miniature; but it is that society in which the laws are natural, because they are sentiments. To interdict a man from the possession of family comforts, should have been the greatest reprobation, the last punishment of the law. It should have been the only pain of death inflicted by a humane and Christian legislation. The punishment of death ought to have been abolished centuries ago.

Lamartine.