Definition: the head of a family
Clearly, this is a combination of “paternal” and “family.”
In a discussion of William F. Buckley:
Through his longevity, sustained productivity, and public visibility, Buckley served the intellectual conservative movement as a paterfamilias.
Added on
The role of paterfamilias comes up a lot in The First Man in Rome.
This is a “historical novel.” It’s sort of fiction, but sort of not. It’s a narrative of history, but apparently quite accurate. The book mainly follows two men: Gaius Marius (a real person ) and Lucius Cornelius Sulla (also a real person ), during the period of 110 - 100BC in Ancient Rome and its…
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