ABSTRACT
Property is traditionally a matter of importance and pride to the middle class of any industrial or commercial society. Respect for private property is often linked to political freedom as well as to financial and commercial success and to the ideology of modem liberalism. Property in Richard M. Weaver's sense also protects against the dishonor of adulteration. The problem of affirming the transcendent by means of property as a metaphysical right, is dealt within the context of his treatment of the rise of nominalism and the consequent decline of the West. The "prerogatives of sex" which Weaver mentions as another metaphysical right are banished and the family, with its authority anchored in the husband/father, is seen as a mere human institution, and male dominance as mere exploitation. The principle of patriarchy as a fundamental form of private property thus illustrates the difference, serves as a watershed, between traditional and modem views, between property that serves mere social utility.
