The homestead then is a token of community life, not merely of individual success in building a house in a remote area.
Primary institutions are the essential life forms of community.
They are 'primary' in the double sense of being basic to the life of the community and primary also in the sense of being the first institutions to arrive. As settlement matures, other institutions appear, but in the order of sequence and importance, these later social forms are secondary and overlay an already existing structure of primary institutions.