Comments on: 168

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:55:38 +0000

§ 168: No marriage between relatives

A marriage arises from the free devotion of two people who each stand on their own. Something follows from this.

Why not between relatives?

Brothers and sisters or close relatives have known each other since childhood. Nature already binds them together. What is already one cannot first unite in marriage. Marriage should come from separate families. Two people who were strangers before should find each other.

An image:

A conversation with a new person is full of surprises. You discover each other bit by bit. Getting to know each other makes the bond rich. What you have long known, you no longer need to discover.

Only a vague feeling?

Some say: Only a vague feeling of shame speaks against marriage between relatives. But this feeling has a reason in the matter itself. Marriage is a free ethical act, not mere nature. The greater the difference two people come from, the stronger the bond.

Summary: Marriage should join people from different families. What nature has already joined cannot unite in freedom. The feeling of shame has its reason in this.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 13:44:05 +0000

In the first place, marriage between blood relatives is already opposed to the feeling of shame, but this recoiling is justified in the concept of the matter. For what is already united cannot first be united through marriage. From the side of the merely natural relation it is well known that matings within one family of animals produce weaker offspring, for what is to be united must be something previously separated; the power of generation, like that of spirit, is the greater the greater the oppositions are out of which it restores itself. The familiarity, acquaintance, and habit of acting together ought not yet to exist before the marriage: it is to be found first within it, and this finding has all the higher value the richer it is and the more parts it has.

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Mon, 03 Feb 1823 08:08:32 +0000

Withdrawal of itself into itself
To found a new family from the very beginning –
What gives itself must be a whole, a self-subsistent individual – an independent singularity –; what is already united does not give itself –
Sex – natural difference – spirit is to complete the difference of blood –
The union of what is most separated is not simply found – spiritual, felt union – is composed out of communicating, first finding oneself, out of infinitely many particulars – What is already known does not interest, one already possesses it – [there must be] first discovering oneself, – understanding oneself – being surprised –
Siblings – a sexless relation – not the conscious, living unity positing itself into intimacy, –