Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/615

 The Family in Bjtfrnson's Tales 611 should, above all, be preserved between mother and child, since the mother's moral influence is more vital for the child's welfare than is the father's. But such an ideal relation between mother and child is often disturbed by conditions over which neither has control. The chief factor in this regard is perhaps the established tradition as to the father's supreme authority in the family. The mother is thus deprived of a controlling hand in the education and destiny of her child. " Are you his mother?," says Josephine in Pa Guds Veje (1889), when she attempts to assume the author- ity over her child. "I am his father. The Bible and the law make the father the owner of the child," answers her husband, who thus overrules all arguments, however reasonable or vital for the child's welfare, under the authority of religious and social convention. Altho the mother constitutes the chief moral factor in the the child's life, she is, nevertheless, deprived of an equal respon- sibility over the child. "Do you believe that both parents should have an equal responsibility in the child's welfare," the mother in Stfv (1882) is asked. "I most certainly do/' she replies, "men have in this regard done exactly as they please, just as in everything else." This injustice, which social and religious convention has inflicted upon the mother, undermines the moral health of the whole family and has a far reaching effect upon the future generation. The most serious effect is perhaps noticeable in the charac- ter of the son. With the loss of the mother's moral authority the son is often prone to assume towards his mother the same presumptuous attitude as does his father (cf. e.g. Torbj^rn in Synnfoe Solbakken). At a very early age the boy learns that woman is to be treated as man's social inferior and those primitive ideals of physical superiority, as exemplified in the father and which naturally appeal to the boy's imagination, often serve to outweigh the higher moral influence and devotion of the mother (cf. e.g. Rafael, before his father's death, in Absalon's Har). The boy's moral valuations are thus often perverted before he reaches an age of independent judgment. The mother's influence begins to prevail only after the boy's