Comments on: 161

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:54:39 +0000

§ 161: What marriage is

Marriage has two sides.

One is natural. Man and woman differ in their bodies. Through them, life goes on.

The other is spiritual. The natural bond turns into a conscious love.

Three false views:

People can misunderstand marriage. First, as a merely physical union. Second, as a contract, as Kant did. Then two people use each other on the basis of an agreement. Third, as mere love. But love is a feeling. Feelings come and go.

What is marriage then?

Marriage is love that is both rightful and ethical. In it, the whims and the passing moods of mere infatuation disappear.

Summary: Marriage has a natural and a spiritual side. It is not merely physical, not a contract, and not a mere feeling. It is love that is both rightful and ethical.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 13:41:59 +0000

Marriage is essentially an ethical relationship. Formerly, especially in most theories of natural right, it was regarded only from its physical side, in terms of what it is by nature. It was thus considered merely as a relation of the sexes, and every avenue to the further determinations of marriage remained closed. But it is just as crude to conceive of marriage merely as a civil contract, a conception that occurs even in Kant, where the mutual arbitrary will comes to an agreement concerning the individuals, and marriage is thereby degraded to the form of a reciprocal contractual use. The third conception, equally to be rejected, is the one that locates marriage solely in love, for love, being a feeling, admits of contingency in every respect – a form which the ethical must not have. Marriage is therefore to be more precisely determined as rightfully ethical love, whereby its transient, capricious, and merely subjective character disappears from it.

By: Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830)

Hegel (Encyclopedia 1830) — Sat, 18 Sep 1830 23:06:32 +0000

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1830), § 519:

§ 519. I. The difference of the natural sexes likewise appears at the same time as a difference of intellectual and ethical determination. The personalities unite here, according to their exclusive individuality, into one person; subjective intimacy, determined into substantial unity, makes this union into an ethical relationship, - into marriage. The substantial intimacy makes marriage into an undivided bond of the persons, - into monogamous marriage; the bodily union is a consequence of the ethically forged bond. The further consequence is the commonality of personal and particular interests.

By: Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827)

Hegel (Encyclopedia 1827) — Thu, 24 May 1827 23:06:32 +0000

Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (1827), § 519:

§ 519. 1) The difference of the natural sexes likewise appears at the same time as a difference of intellectual and ethical determination. These personalities unite, according to their exclusive individuality, into One person; subjective intimacy, determined into substantial unity, makes this union into an ethical relationship; – into marriage. The substantial intimacy makes marriage into an undivided bond of the persons, – into monogamous marriage; the bodily union is a consequence of the ethically forged bond. The further consequence is the commonality of personal and particular interests.

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Wed, 29 Jan 1823 08:10:32 +0000

Necessity right – of marriage – in ordinary natural law
– Marriage – unity in its immediate existence in itself – identity of interests, ends –
α) merely physical, natural, animal sexual drive – not the justification of marriage – Venus vaga
β) contract – over property – use – as an external thing –
genus – because ethical life – universal nature
– This natural side only out of love, a consequence resting on the ground of disposition – not the substantial – natural unity –
Spirituality alters the determination –