A corollary of what precedes, is that the father should love all his children equally, and guard against showing a preference. He should have no favorites among them, still less victims. He should not, from feelings of family pride, prefer the boys to the girls, or the oldest to the youngest. He should not even yield to the natural predilection which inclines us to give our preference to the most amiable, the most intelligent, the most attractively endowed. It has often been observed that mothers have a particular tenderness for the feeblest of their children, or those that have given most trouble. If preference is at all justifiable it is in this case.
After having established the general principle of the duties of the head of a family, namely, love, and an equal love, for all his children, let us consider the particular duties this general duty comprises. They bear upon two principal points: the preservation and the education of the children.
We have seen that the fact of giving life to children, carries with it as an inevitable consequence the duty of preserving it to them. The child not being able to provide its own food, the parents must furnish it: this results from the very nature of things.
Whence it follows, that a father must work to provide for his children: this is so evident and necessary a duty that there is hardly any need of dwelling on it.
But it is not only for the present that the head of the family ought to provide; he should provide for the future also. He should, on the one hand, foresee the case when, by some possible misfortune, he may be taken from his children before they are grown; and on the other, prepare the way to their providing for themselves. The first case shows us how economy and prudence become thus a sacred duty for the head of a family. This also explains how it may be a duty in contracting a marriage not to lose sight of the question of property: not that this consideration should not give way before others more important; but other things being equal, the best marriage is that which, keeping in view the future interests of the children, provides against the case when by some misfortune they may be left orphans at an early age.