Like the other form of paternal tyranny, it had a
perfectly natural and even rational origin. As the
power of comi)elling obedience in the family was, in
unsettled times, a military necessity, so this right of
controlling the labor and earnings was an economic
necessity for the support of the family group in pas-
toral and early agricultural times. It rapidly grew
past this, however, until it finally developed into a
right — which, like that of life and death, was for-
mally recognized in law — of absolute control over the
time and earnings of all children up to a certain defi-
nite age. In good hands it was little more than a reason-
able and bracing method of training for life, but in
bad or callous hands it developed into a grasping and
grinding tyranny which the children not infrequently
ran away from home to escape; whereupon, if they
could be caught, they would be arrested and brought
back and flogged like any other criminals.
