This may perhaps be explained in part by saying that what is true of the women of the class is true to a less extent also of the men.

They are to an appreciable extent a sheltered class; and the patriarchal relation of status which still persists in their conjugal life and in their habitual use of servants, may also act to conserve an archaic habit of mind and may exercise a retarding influence upon the process of secularization which their habits of thought are undergoing.

The relations of the American middle-class man to the economic community, however, are usually pretty close and exacting; although it may be remarked, by the way and in qualification, that their economic activity frequently also partakes in some degree of the patriarchal or quasi-predatory character.
The occupations which are in good repute among this class and which have most to do with shaping the class habits of thought, are the pecuniary occupations which have been spoken of in a similar connection in an earlier chapter.

There is a good deal of the relation of arbitrary command and submission, and not a little of shrewd practice, remotely akin to predatory fraud.

All this belongs on the plane of life of the predatory barbarian, to whom a devotional attitude is habitual.