In incomplete animal societies, such as those of the ruminants, certain monkeys, etc., the old males, sometimes also the more courageous females (cows, for example) direct the herd and become recognized as chiefs by the others. But in these cases the personal property of objects or even living beings takes no part, because the animals have not yet learned its value. Other animals living isolated show the first tendencies toward personal property; for example, the nest where they hoard their provisions, while others, such as the ants, bees, wasps, etc., have the sentiment of collective property well developed. For instance, a swarm of ants regards plants with grubs as its property, and defends them in consequence. As soon as he has attained a primitive degree of culture, man comprehends that the possession, not only of land and the produce of work, but also the persons of other men, may profit him; and this leads to slavery. The male being the stronger soon combines the satisfaction of his sexual appetite with the advantage of property, by placing the woman more and more under his dependence and exploiting her. In this way woman becomes an object for sale and exchange, which will procure the purchaser, besides satisfaction for his sexual appetite, a docile slave and worker and a procreator of children, a source of other workers. This motive, so clearly revealed by ethnography and history, sufficiently explains the ignoble traffic that man has made of love, or rather of sexual appetite. We have seen in Chapter VI the profit made by polygamous barbarians by the possession of many wives and children, which led more and more to the buying and selling of the latter. These customs are instinctively related to the traffic of slaves. Our modern civilization has happily abolished these taints, but money still influences our sexual life by measures which are hardly any better. The complication and refinement of civilized life have made women and children objects of luxury, and not a source of wealth as in former times. This is due to two causes. On the one hand, a wider and more humane conception of the social position of women and children has extended their rights. Man cannot now exploit them to the same extent as in the time of patriarchism, while the father of the family has, on the contrary, the duty of maintaining his wife and family, and of giving the latter a proper education. Among the poor, the exploitation of the wife and children still exists; but in the case of the rich and cultured the inverse phenomenon is produced. With the intention of making his family happy and distinguished, the father brings it up in luxury and idleness, and this produces a very harmful result. The increasing refinement of modern life and its pleasures leads to effeminacy. It bears upon the whole of society and degenerates into an artificial desire for brilliancy and show, which makes it increasingly difficult to obtain a simple and sober education for the family.