his unmarried
daughters--could not acquire any property of their own. Failing father
or husband, the unmarried daughters were placed under the guardianship
of the nearest male members of the family. Thus the family, in the
narrower sense in which we commonly use the word, as meaning descendants
of a common father or grandfather, was, as it were, a single point of
growth in a larger organism, the _gens_, which consisted of all those
who shared a common ancestry.

The wife, though in law the property of her husband, held a position
of honour and influence higher than that of the Greek wife, at least
in historic times. She seems to come nearer to the ideal of Xenophon:
"the good wife should be the mistress of everything within the house."
"A house of his own and the blessing of children appeared to the Roman
citizen as the end and essence of life" (Mommsen, _Hist. Rome_). The
obligation of the father to the sons was strongly felt. The family,
past, present and future, was conceived as one and indivisible. Each
succeeding generation had a right to the care of its predecessor in
mind, body and estate. The training of the sons was distinctly a home
and not a school training. Brought up by the father and constantly at
his side, they learnt spontaneously the habits and traditions of the
family. The home was their school. By their father they were
introduced into public life, and though still remaining under his
power during his lifetime, they became citizens, and their relation to
the state was direct. The nation was a nation of yeomen. Only
agriculture and warfare were considered honourable employments. The
father and sons worked outdoors on the farm, employing little or no
slave labour; the wife and daughters indoors at spinning and weaving.
The drudgery of the household was done by domestic slaves. The father
was the working head of a toiling household. Their chief gods were the
same as those of early Greece--Zeus-Diovis and Hestia-Vesta, the
goddess of the hearth and home. Out of this solid, compact family
Roman society was built, and so long as the family was strong
attachment to the service of the state was intense. The _res publica_,
the common weal, the phrase and the thought, meet one at every turn;
and never were citizens more patient and tenacious combatants on their
country's behalf. The men were soldiers in an unpaid militia and were
constantly engaged in w