Having thus reduced his father's estate, he may also bring his father
into the Court of Chancery, where he may compel him to swear to the
value of his estate, and to allow him out of that possession (which had
been before reduced to an estate for life) such an immediate annual
allowance as the Lord Chancellor or Lord Keeper shall judge suitable to
his ago and quality.
This indulgence is not confined to the eldest son. The other children
likewise, by conformity, may acquire the same privileges, and in the
same manner force from their father an immediate and independent
maintenance. It is very well worth remarking, that the statutes have
avoided to fix any determinate age for these emancipating conversions;
so that the children, at any age, however incapable of choice in other
respects, however immature or even infantile, are yet considered
sufficiently capable to disinherit their parents, and totally to
subtract themselves from their direction and control, either at their
own option, or by the instigation of others. By this law the tenure and
value of a Roman Catholic in his real property is not only rendered
extremely limited and altogether precarious, but the paternal power is
in all such families so enervated that it may well be considered as
entirely taken away; even the principle upon which it is founded seems
to be directly reversed.
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