Where the attitude towards the state, its institutions and authority is not one of love, friendliness or reverence, but one of hate and rebellion, it is of course the corresponding feelings of hostility towards the parents which play a leading part in the unconscious motivation of malcontents or revolutionaries. It is principally for this reason that revolutions in autocratic paternal states (_cp._ the recent upheavals in Russia and Germany and the French Revolution) are usually more violent and extreme than in the case of the freer and more liberal maternal countries, since the desire for rebellion in early family life is generally directed against the authority of the father to a much greater extent than against that of the mother. [Sidenote: Family organisation and State organisation] There probably exists, moreover, as Rank[154] and Jones[155] have already suggested, a considerable degree of correspondence between the nature of the family system as found in any country and some of the political features to which we have referred. Thus the authority of the head of the household--the _patria potestas_--was perhaps more developed among the Romans than among any other western people, and the Romans elaborated a military and civil administration of such strength and durability that the whole of western civilisation has to a large extent been raised and developed on the foundation and the model it afforded. With the Jews also the patriarchal system was developed to its fullest extent and this people has shown its inherent conservatism and stability by the preservation of many of its characteristic physical, psychological, moral and social qualities, though homeless for upwards of two thousand years. Among Oriental nations, the Chinese are distinguished for their rigid system of family rule and individual subordination to the parents and they evolved a civilisation which lasted almost without change for a period that is without parallel in recorded human history. On the other hand it is notorious that in times of rapid social change or political upheaval, family ties and family authority tend to be relaxed, the individual asserting his freedom in domestic as well as in political matters; and it is probable that there exists a tendency for all periods of national or racial instability, whether leading to development or to degeneration, to be characterised by a relaxation or throwing off of parental authority and tradition; though it is obvious that, owing to the great complexity of the factors involved in the rise or fall, expansion or decay of nations, the correspondence cannot be an absolute one. [Sidenote: Ambivalent attitude towards the king]