Q. Dissipation and prodigality, therefore, are vices?

A. Yes, for by them man, in the end, is deprived of the necessaries of life; he falls into poverty and wretchedness; and his very friends, fearing to be obliged to restore to him what he has spent with or for them, avoid him as a debtor does his creditor, and he remains abandoned by the whole world.

Q. What is paternal love?

A. It is the assiduous care taken by parents to make their children contract the habit of every action useful to themselves and to society.

Q. Why is paternal tenderness a virtue in parents?

A. Because parents, who rear their children in those habits, procure for themselves, during the course of their lives, enjoyments and helps that give a sensible satisfaction at every instant, and which assure to them, when advanced in years, supports and consolations against the wants and calamities of all kinds with which old age is beset.

Q. Is paternal love a common virtue?

A. No; notwithstanding the ostentation made of it by parents, it is a rare virtue.  They do not love their children, they caress and spoil them.  In them they love only the agents of their will, the instruments of their power, the trophies of their vanity, the pastime of their idleness.  It is not so much the welfare of their children that they propose to themselves, as their submission and obedience; and if among children so many are seen ungrateful for benefits received, it is because there are among parents as many despotic and ignorant benefactors.

Q. Why do you say that conjugal love is a virtue?

A. Because the concord and union resulting from the love of the married, establish in the heart of the family a multitude of habits useful to its prosperity and preservation.  The united pair are attached to, and seldom quit their home; they superintend each particular direction of it; they attend to the education of their children; they maintain the respect and fidelity of domestics; they prevent all disorder and dissipation; and from the whole of their good conduct, they live in ease and consideration; while married persons who do not love one another, fill their house with quarrels and troubles, create dissension between their children and the servants, leaving both indiscriminately to all kinds of vicious habits; every one in turn spoils, robs, and plunders the house; the revenues are absorbed without profit; debts accumulate; the married pair avoid each other, or contend in lawsuits; and the whole family falls into disorder, ruin, disgrace and want.

Q. Is adultery an offence in the law of nature?

A. Yes; for it is attended with a number of habits injurious to the married and to their families.  The wife or husband, whose affections are estranged, neglect their house, avoid it, and deprive it, as much as they can, of its revenues or income, to expend them with the object of their affections; hence arise quarrels, scandal, lawsuits, the neglect of their children and servants, and at last the plundering and ruin of the whole family; without reckoning that the adulterous woman commits a most grievous theft, in giving to her husband heirs of foreign blood, who deprive his real children of their legitimate portion.