The Patriarchy of Rousseau

There's a lot I like about the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. There is also, however, a lot to dislike. As I've been reading his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality and now the Discourse on Political Economy, I keep bumping into passages that basically make me want to say, "Rousseau, you pig!" Like this one, for example:

In the family, it is clear, for several reasons which lie in its very nature, that the father ought to command. In the first place, the authority ought not to be equally divided between father and mother; the government must be single, and in every division of opinion there must be one preponderant voice to decide. Secondly, however lightly we may regard the disadvantages peculiar to women, yet, as they necessarily occasion intervals of inaction, this is a sufficient reason for excluding them from this supreme authority: for when the balance is perfectly even, a straw is enough to turn the scale. Besides, the husband ought to be able to superintend his wife's conduct, because it is of importance for him to be assured that the children, whom he is obliged to acknowledge and maintain, belong to no one but himself. Thirdly, children should be obedient to their father, at first of necessity, and afterwards from gratitude: after having had their wants satisfied by him during one half of their lives, they ought to consecrate the other half to providing for his. Fourthly, servants owe him their services in exchange for the provision he makes for them, though they may break off the bargain as soon as it ceases to suit them. I say nothing here of slavery, because it is contrary to nature, and cannot be authorised by any right or law.

Now, to a certain extent one shouldn't judge Rousseau too harshly for this passage. It was probably no worse, and perhaps even a bit more enlightened, than the conventional wisdom of the day. He at least makes a nod toward the general equality of the sexes, for example. Moreover, this is found in a tract on political economy, not economy in the original sense, pertaining to a single household. The point of discussing the natural patriarchy of a family in this passage is to go on, in the next one, to contrast a political society with a family, and argue that a political ruler does not hold his command by natural right as the father does. The claims he makes in this paragraph are probably best understood as allusions by Rousseau to the conventional wisdom about Topic X for the purpose of making a point about Topic Y. Those mitigating factors aside, however, my god how piggish the ideas in that paragraph are.