The husband, actuated by habit, timidity, a sense of duty and propriety, attached to his home by his deep affection for one or more of his many children, and deluded both by the voice of the world and by the repeated asseverations of his wife into believing that there is a deep affection uniting them, endeavours to act up to the part, and as a rule succeeds extraordinarily well. But is that all? There must, of course, be something else. Just as the woman is induced to accept the situation, because it provides her with the only prize that is really worth securing in life—complete physical adaptation[76]—so the man must also be deriving some deeper satisfaction from the position than the mere pleasure of conforming to a social ideal. It is otherwise inconceivable that he should persist in “playing up” to his spouse with the histrionic zeal of a paid actor. Truth to tell, the father of a large family is attracted to the position he holds by very deep and very powerful appeals to his most primitive instincts. But again, it requires emphasizing that these deep and powerful appeals are as a rule quite independent of his attitude towards his wife, and provided that she do not actively conspire to displease or to harass him, they will continue to bind him to his home long after all genuine affection for her has entirely subsided. These appeals are: The sense of power he derives from the visible extension of his own identity in his offspring, and: The silent tribute that the presence of offspring makes daily and hourly to the deepest source of his self-esteem—virile potency.[77] Both of these appeals act secretly, and chiefly through the least conscious functions of his mind, so that he may never be perfectly aware of them. Nevertheless, they give rise to a constant feeling of self-assurance and self-confidence which is pleasant and fortifying, and which, being interpreted roughly by the conscious mind, appears to his intelligent perception in the form of a very profound attachment to his home and family. This pleasant feeling, like the complete physical adaptation of his wife, also fills him with a certain calmness and serenity which enable him to suffer kindly any exasperating peculiarity in his spouse, to endure with patience her ill-concealed indifference to him as being little more important than a sparking-plug or breadwinner, and to meet in a conciliating spirit any opposition with which she may encounter his plans for their children, or for any other feature of their joint lives. It should not be forgotten either that this feeling helps him to resign himself also to the conscious depreciation in his own affection towards her.