Even now French law accords considerable power to parents. A child cannot quit the paternal residence without the permission of the father before the age of twenty-one except for enrolment in the army.[1480] For grave misconduct by his children the father has strong means of correction.[1481] A son under twenty-five and a daughter under twenty-one cannot marry without the consent of their parents;[1482] and, even when a man has attained his twenty-fifth year, and the woman her twenty-first, both are still bound to ask for it, by a formal notification.[1483] Parental restraints upon marriage exist to a very great extent in Germany and Holland also, the marriage of minors being absolutely void, if effected without the consent of the father, or of the mother if she be the survivor. According to American, Scotch, and Irish law, on the other hand, the consent of parents and guardians to the marriage of minors is not requisite to the validity of the union. The same was the case in England prior to the statute of 26 Geo. II. c. 33, which declared all marriages by license, when either of the parties was under the age of twenty-one years, if celebrated without publication of banns, or without the consent of the father or unmarried mother, or guardian to be absolutely null and void.[1484] There is thus a certain resemblance between the family institution of savage tribes and that of the most advanced races. Among both, the grown-up son, and frequently the grown-up daughter, enjoys a liberty unknown among peoples at an intermediate stage of civilization. There are, however, these vital differences:—that children in civilized countries are in no respect the property of their parents; that they are born with certain rights guaranteed to them by society; that the birth of children gives parents no rights over them other than those which conduce to the children’s happiness. These ideas, essential as they are to true civilization, are not many centuries old. It is a purely modern conception the French Encyclopedist expresses when he says, “Le pouvoir paternel est plutôt un devoir qu’un pouvoir.”[1485] CHAPTER XI SEXUAL SELECTION AMONG ANIMALS