What does the narrator mean when said,"Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town"?

Emily's family was entrenched in a socially prominent position. Emily was awarded special privileges based upon her father's achievements, not her own. While she was not loved, or cherished, it was accepted in the town that she was special. She was an obligation that the town had no choice to defer to, protect, and revere. Because it was done since the time of herfather, it was natural to continue the special treatment.