The social pressure upon the father-head of the family was therefore severe and unremitting, since he was in so many ways responsible for, as truly as master of, his household.

It was no light task to be a worthy head of a patriarchal family in all the ages when growing law was superseding custom and advancing civilization was increasing the complexity of social life.

This task when well achieved gave to man a serious sense of his duty as well as a firm conviction of his power.
We see the fruits of that ethical training in family responsibility in many of man's noblest traits; preeminently in his recognition of the duty of protection of the weak and young, and in his devotion to his own, against the world if need be.
The vast outreach of man's intelligence toward the organization of the state, of the industrial order, of the church, of the formal educative process, of the means of transportation, of the systems of finance, of the development and application of scientific knowledge, and even of the arts and of literature, all reveal the effect of his early schooling in the representative responsibility of fatherhood to society.
We speak to-day of the "father of modern invention" in this or that particular.

We have not ceased to praise the "good provider" or to esteem him highly who has a well-ordered home.
=Moral Qualities in Women Developed by Masculine Selection.=--Moreover, we are all now recognizing the fact that we owe to the ownership of woman by man a secondary sex-selection of inestimable value.

It may be an extreme statement to say, with at least one sociologist, that the ages of woman's subjection to man was not too great a price to pay for the gift to the race of feminine beauty and charm.