Is it still a man's role to protect his home and family?

I have a friend who delivers newspapers very early in the morning, like 0200. So the other morning as he was delivering a newspaper he was greeted by a woman who told him her husband saw him approaching the house and asked her to investigate.

He told me that it was, for lack of a better term, cowardly because he thought that barring a physical disability a man should still protect his home and family, but I'm not so sure.

What do you all think?