The Doctrine of Right, Duties and Religion for the Lower Class

[p. 265]

§ 51

The union of persons of two sexes, which is marriage, is essentially neither a merely natural, animal union nor a mere civil contract, but a moral union of disposition in mutual love and trust, which makes them one person.

§ 52

The duty of parents towards children is to care for their maintenance and education, – that of children, to obey [them] until they become independent, and to honour them their whole life, – that of brothers and sisters in general, to act towards one another in accordance with love and particular equity.

III. Duties towards the State

Cross-reference: § 257 ff.; on duty towards the state especially § 258 and § 261.

§ 53

The natural whole that the family constitutes expands into the whole of a people and state, in which the individuals have for themselves an independent will.

Explanation. The state on the one hand tends towards being able to dispense with the disposition of the citizens, namely insofar as it must make itself independent of the will of individuals. It therefore prescribes to individuals exactly their obligations, namely the share which they must contribute to the whole. It cannot rely on mere disposition, because this can just as well be self-interested and set itself against the interest of the state. – In this way the state becomes a machine, a system of external dependencies. But on the other side it cannot dispense with the disposition of the citizens. The prescription of the government can contain only the universal. The actual action, the filling out of the purposes of the state, contains the particular manner of activity. This can arise only from the individual understanding, from the disposition of man.

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