The clan and the combinations of the different clans were replaced by the state. This was an organization which had for its principal end the maintenance of order as far as possible, in a society in which the interests of different groups, like those of individuals, were opposed to each other, and the regulation of this conflict of interests. [307] This organization is consequently entirely different from the clan, the object of which was to take the interests of the community to heart. It is evident that in an organization like this it is the most important and influential class which comes first. On the one hand, then, the clan loses itself in the state; on the other hand the family, which played but a secondary part while the clan system was at its height, became of greater importance. The clan is divided into “great families” (“Grossfamilien”), i.e. husband, wife, and their unmarried children as well as their male descendants, with their wives and children; and the father is the master of all these persons and all their property. However it is only little by little, and in proportion as we get away from the clan, that the authority of the father becomes unlimited. This form of the family has continued even down to our own day in China and Japan, and was general during the early days of ancient Rome. In China the woman, whose work is entirely limited to household occupations, has a position which, according to all accounts, is only that of a subordinate. Her whole life is under the direction of her husband; she can never obtain a divorce, while her husband can dissolve the marriage without cause; if he takes her in the act of adultery he has the right to kill her, while he himself may keep concubines. In Japan the position of woman is much the same, and in ancient Rome also, though in the course of time the situation of the Roman woman was improved. As the method of production became more elaborate and the social life was modified as a consequence, the “great family” disappeared, to be replaced by the modern family, consisting of the husband and wife with their unmarried children. Through the increasing extension of the division of labor the sons could more easily provide for their own needs and withdraw themselves in this way from the paternal authority, and the increasing power of the state favored this tendency by limiting the authority of the father.