The mutual duties of parents and their children: Evidence from post-Tridentine Liège

During the Early Modern period, the family was regarded as a ‘domestic economy’, with the husband and father at its head. Although familial relationships were primarily vertical – the family was a hierarchy – they were also governed by reciprocal obligations. This was notably the case in the relationship between parents and children. Drawing on the Fourth Commandment (Ex. 20:12), children were expected to show respect, love, obedience, and to assist their parents in times of need. In turn, parents were responsible for their children’s material support and, crucially, their spiritual education. In many respects, the mutual duties binding parents and children in this period prefigure modern legal notions of maintenance obligations, which today fall squarely within the domain of law. In the context of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, increasing emphasis was placed on the parents’ duty to give their children a strictly Catholic upbringing, as children had to be protected from any ‘heretical’ influence from an early age. Consequently, a substantial body of prescriptive literature, including manuals for confessors and treatises on domestic economy aimed at an educated lay readership, emerged to give parents advice on how to best conform to Christian ideals. Focusing on post-Tridentine Liège (c. 1563–1700) as a case study, this paper examines how these biblically grounded, reciprocal duties were disseminated among the population and articulated in local legal literature. It then compares these normative sources with evidence drawn from wills and marriage contracts preserved in notarial records. These documents offer concrete insights into how parents sought to reinforce filial duties and moral expectations through private legal instruments, thereby shedding light on the interaction between law, religion and morality within the Early Modern family.