Note 61 — Chapter III
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
As has already been said above conditions among the higher agriculturists were patriarchal. The father had unlimited power over his unmarried daughters, and over all his sons with their descendants.61 It is from these so-called “great families”, that the present form of the family springs (husband, wife, and their not yet emancipated children) as a consequence of the fact that the adult sons have been able to emancipate themselves on account of the modifications that the economic life has undergone. From this time especially the affection for children in general which is found among almost all people, takes on an exclusive character, and becomes limited to one’s own children. For monogamy is before all a consequence of the desire of the man, which came in with private property, to leave his possessions to the children of his legal wife, whose father he knew himself to be.62