To conclude then, tho' the father's power of commanding extends no farther than the minority of his children, and to a degree only fit for the discipline and government of that age; and tho' that honour and respect, and all that which the Latins called piety, which they indispensably owe to their parents all their life time, and in all estates, with all that support and defence is due to them, gives the father no power of governing, ie making laws and enacting penalties on his children; though by all this he has nodominion over the property or actions of his son: yet it is obvious to conceive how easy it was, in the first ages of the world, and in places still, where the thinness of people gives families leave to separate into unpossessed quarters, and they have room to remove or plant themselves in yet vacant habitations, for the father of the family to become the prince of it; he had been a ruler from the beginning of the infancy of his children: and since without some government it would be hard for them to live together