I don't know about english, but in spanish, the word was used to talk about the rule of a patriarch over the whole family (sons and grand sons too). The patriarch decided everything, including marriages for his children, grand children and any family member.

The thing is that a third son who has no prospects to become the patriarch ever, still has the chance to walk away and start from nothing. Girls and women would be forced to come back.

I think that I read about it when we were studying middle age, but you could probably apply it to romans too. Mary Beard might have written about this.