=The Responsibility of the Ancient Father Commensurate With His
Power.=--Again, it must be remembered that if the ancient father was
by virtue of his military training and activities separated from the
domestic interests which he so often and with full social permission
sacrificed to war and preparation for war, he was at the same time
under perpetual conscription by the community of which he was a part
to serve as protector of his own family and the families of those of
the same social group. 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. We can assert, however, that some moral values which
men insisted upon in the women they chose for wives gave the race what
at one time it needed most and still needs: namely, the habit of
service to others, and the power of adaptability to changing and often
difficult conditions.
Man's genius for organization institutionalizes every aspect of
thought and activity he takes under his control. The institution,
organized at first for the benefit of personal life and the
life-process, tends invariably toward a fixity of method and hardness
of substance that finally sacrifices life-growth to its iron pressure
until a new form of institution makes its way through struggle and
suffering.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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