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.