3 Custody of Child and Parental Authority

1. Parental authority (the civil-law "puissance paternelle" made equal): the decisions- and-care power of both parents — residence, education, health, religion, property-of-the-child; exercised jointly during marriage; allocated by the court on divorce; 2. Custody — the rules-and-discretion design: the statutory guidance (the young child's placement preferences; the mother's and father's equal claim; the statute's disqualification grounds — the abusive, neglectful, or incapacitated parent); the best-interest override (the guidance yields to the welfare exam — the Act 2075's standard); the non-custodial parent's access-and-visitation (the contact-and-access orders); the custody-order's revisability (changed circumstances); 3. The third-party custody: grandparents-and-relatives; the alternative care of the Children's Act (the child-care homes' regulation, the kinship care, the foster system's beginnings).