There must be a strong race principle behind a movement of such
magnitude, with such momentous consequences. Elbow room, space, and
isolation to give free play to individual preference, characterized
pioneer days. The cord that bound the whole was love of home,--one's own
home,--even if tinged with impatience of the restraints it imposed, for
home and house do imply a certain restraint in individual wishes. And
here, perhaps, is the greatest significance of the family house. It cannot
perfectly suit _all_ members in its details, but in its great office, that
of shelter and privacy--ownership--the house of the nineteenth century
stands supreme. No other age ever provided so many houses for single
families. It stands between the community houses of primitive times and
the hives of the modern city tenements.
As sociologically defined, the family means a common house--common, that
is, to the family, but excluding all else. This exclusiveness is
foreshadowed in the habits of the majority of animals, each pair
preempting a particular log or burrow or tree in which to rear its young,
to which it retreats for safety from enemies. Primitive man first borrowed
the skins of animals and their burrowing habits.
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