ON GUARDIANSHIPS

THESIS I.

GUARDIANSHIP is, as it were, a contract, or an improper contract, regarding the protection of a fatherless child who has not yet reached the age of puberty.

II.

Here, a quasi-contract is imagined to be celebrated between the guardian and the ward.

III.

And in one and the same guardianship, it can happen that there is either one or several guardians for one ward, or one or several for many wards.

IV.

But since guardianship is a masculine duty, women are repelled from it, unless it be a mother or grandmother who remains in chaste widowhood.

V.

Whence, a woman about to undertake guardianship ought to renounce a second marriage, even if no oath is taken.

VI.

And once a second marriage is contracted, or if her modesty is cast aside, she ceases to be a guardian.

VII.

On the part of the wards, it makes no difference whether it is a female or a male, provided the former is under the twelfth and the latter under the fourteenth year of age.

IIX.

The law establishes these two immediate and completing causes as if they were the most remote cause.

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