Sentence:  Without saying or seeming to say that in portraying the Sartoris and the Compson families Faulkner 's chief concern is social criticism , we can say nevertheless that through those families he dramatizes his comment on the planter dynasties as they have existed since the <WSD>decades</WSD> before the Civil War . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a period of 10 years