Page:The Diothas, or, A far look ahead (IA diothasorfarlook01macn).pdf/213

 All infractions of the received rules of womanly propriety came under the cognizance of a special tribunal of matrons. By these the offender might either be privately admonished, or publicly rebuked before a full meeting of matrons, zeruan, and sometimes vioran. To such meetings no man was ever admitted, and the proceedings were as carefully guarded as those of freemasonry. All that Utis could tell me was, that a rebuke from the tribunal was greatly dreaded, and that it was severe, even against what we would regard as extremely trivial offences against decorum. As for those graver slips, that, even in these coarse days, sometimes cause the members of an honorable family to writhe in an agony of injured pride, they were never heard of. Whether they never occurred, or were effectually prevented from becoming known, I cannot say.

The almost absolute authority of a father over his offspring was regarded as the main safeguard of the social system. Till their marriage, the father had unquestioned power of life and death over his children. Till then he was held responsible for them: to him the community gave full power to train, to restrain, and to punish. If son or daughter died within the father's house, it was the business of no outsider to inquire why or how. A parent's natural affection was relied on to restrain undue severity.

Such power as this it would, no doubt, be unwise to intrust to all parents in the present day, seeing how many there are with no claim to that sacred name beyond the animal fact. Yet an occasional case of excessive severity would be preferable to the present decay of parental control,—a tendency promoted to the full extent