those qualities which from the modern point of view are the less
admirable. In this respect the sovereign husband resembles the Sovereign
State. The Sovereign State, as it has survived from Renaissance days in
our modern world, may be made up of admirable people, yet as a State they
are forced into an attitude of helpless egoism which nowadays fails to
commend itself to the outside world, and the tendency of scientific
jurists to-day is to deal very critically with the old conception of the
Sovereign State. It is so with the husband in the home. He was thrust by
ancient tradition into a position of sovereignty which impelled him to
play a part of helpless egoism. He was a celestial body in the home around
which all the other inmates were revolving satellites. The hours of rising
and retiring, the times of meals and their nature and substance, all the
activities of the household--in which he himself takes little or no
part--are still arranged primarily to suit his work, his play, and his
tastes. This is an accepted matter of course, and not the result of any
violent self-assertion on his part. It is equally an accepted matter of
course that the wife should be constantly occupied in keeping this little
solar system in easy harmonious movement, evolving from it, if she has the
skill, the music of the spheres. She has no recognised independent
personality of her own, nor even any right to go away by herself for a
little change and recreation. Any work of her own, play of her own,
tastes of her own, must be strictly subordinated, if not suppressed
altogether.

In the old days, from which our domestic traditions proceed, little
hardship was thus inflicted on the wife. Her rights and privileges were,
indeed, far less than those of the modern woman, but for that very reason
the home offered her a larger field; beneath the shelter of her husband
the irresponsible wife might exert a maximum of influential activity with
a minimum of rights and privileges of her own. To many men, even to-day,