Karcenie dzieci na ziemiach polskich. Regulacje prawne od XIX wieku do dziś
Disciplining Children on Polish Territories. Legal Regulations from the 19th Century to the Present Day

Summary/Abstract: Until the early 19th century, the selection of educational measures by parents and guardians in relation to the children under their care, including those serving to discipline the youngest, was not usually legally restricted. A change in this issue can be observed with the emergence of family law regulations in large European civil law codifications. Each of these regulations in force on the Polish territories of the 19th century, partitioned between three neighbouring powers, clearly referred to the power to discipline a disobedient child. Such disciplining was allowed in each of them, though it was regulated differently, both in terms of defining its grounds, relations to paternal/parental authority, as well as the established restrictions and measures to protect the child. After the Second World War, in Polish legislation we can observe an increasing interference in the autonomy of parents and guardians, when disciplining disappeared from the catalogue of explicitly mentioned educational measures, until the most recent times, when corporal punishment of the youngest was explicitly prohibited in 2010. In the following article, the author attempts to review and briefly summarize the regulations on disciplining children in the basic legal acts in force in Poland since the beginning of the 19th century, going through the early 20th century and the interwar period, the times of the occupation and People's Republic of Poland, until the current legal status. In addition to the parental powers, the author examines similar provisions regarding the legal guardian.

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