Dooyeweerd: Marriage & Family

Rembrandt: "Het Joodse Bruidje"

The main text below is an abridged extract from "A New Critique of Theoretical Thought" by Herman Dooyeweerd, Vol. III, 1969. (pp 266-345)

Herman Dooyeweerd 1894-1977. Original Dutch version of main work De Wijsbegeerte der Wetsidee 1935-6. Revised and expanded in English as A New Critique of Theoretical Thought 1953-8

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THE STRUCTURAL PRINCIPLE OF THE NATURAL FAMILY.

    The extremely rich structure of procreation by which a human pair bring forth children in the closest possible interconnection of two temporal existences, is certainly not to be understood entirely in terms of biology, and not at all in functional terms.

     Nevertheless, the structural typicalness of human reproduction is undoubtedly biotically founded; its functions in post-biotic modalities rest upon a typical biotic substratum. Intersexual procreation and descent reveal an original modal type of individuality only in the biotic law-sphere.

     But it is clear that blood-relation in its typical biotic sense is not able to qualify the human family-bond between parents and children.

     The biotic function cannot be considered to be the "leading" function of this community. Only the radical type "plant" is qualified as a typical biotic subject. Even the bond between animals and their young is directed in its inner structure by a later leading function, namely, by the sensory instinctive impulse of care and protection founded in the biotic blood-relationship.

The typical leading function of the immediate family-relationship. Refutation of the opinion that the latter does not have a typical leading function which qualifies its inner destination.

     What then is the typical leading or qualifying function in the inner structure of the immediate family-bond?

     We have seen that the universalist Aristotelian-Thomistic conception has in fact eliminated this structural problem by conceiving the relationship between parents and their children under age as a part of the domestic community. The latter was viewed as an economic unity, embracing primarily the relation between the domestic chief and his servants, and in addition that between husband and wife. The relation between parents and children was then conceived under the general teleological viewpoint of a rational and moral perfection of the undeveloped human nature of the children resulting in their education to good citizens. In the Thomistic theory this natural education requires its supra-natural completion by forming the children into good sons and daughters of the Church, as the institution of grace.

     This entire view is not concerned with the inner nature of the immediate family-bond. Much rather it is directed to the natural and supra-natural aims to which this relationship is serviceable. But does the latter actuality have a typical qualifying function which determines its inner destination? Is it not exactly the rich and universal character both of the matrimonial and the family bond that they are all-inclusive or "supra-functional" vital communities, in contradistinction to the arbitrary associations formed for specific purposes?

     This question ought to be examined closely. It originates in a very generally held notion of the universality of the natural family, as the primal cell of society. The word "universality" carries with it a particular temptation, which becomes dangerous if one loses sight of the inner structural delimitations which the temporal world-order places in the way of all universalist constructions.

     The absolutization of a specific modal aspect of our experiential horizon appeared also to be defended by an appeal to its universality. It was, therefore, necessary, in our analysis of the modal structures in Volume II, to show how this universality is limited by the cosmic temporal order. The universality of every modal sphere turned out to be bound to its inner specific structure, which excludes every attempt at its elevation to a whole encompassing all the other modalities.

     The tempting appeal to the all-inclusiveness or universality of the intimate bonds encountered in marriage and the family ought not to distract us from our aim to discover their intrinsic structural laws.

     Insofar as this appeal to universality is intended to arrest our search for the typical qualifying function of the family, it contains a two-fold misunderstanding. It is consciously or unconsciously affected by the undifferentiated Aristotelian conception of a household with its threefold authoritarian relation. And it is guilty of a confusion repeatedly mentioned between the internal destination and the external functional objectives of a community. The inner structural limitation displayed by a communal relationship because of its typical leading or qualifying function, is in no way opposed to the universality of the internal societal bonds, in the sense of all-sidedness. But through its leading function all relations within a community receive their typical qualification and inner direction. The latter is in no way related to the external "ends" of a communal whole.

     We admit that the separation of the inner structure of a family from the organized communities with an undifferentiated inner destination, pre-supposes the differentiating process in the development of civilization. This differentiating process, however, concerns only the positive forms of actual transitory societal relationships. Their inner structural principles cannot be a product of this historical process, because structural differentiation pre-supposes the constant validity of these principles.

      Even when on a lower cultural level a natural family relationship is enkaptically bound in a primitive undifferentiated organized community like the sib or the domestic community, its inner structural principle is the same as that of a modern family that has been emancipated from this enkaptic interlacement.

     Undoubtedly it makes a great difference for the concrete positive form of the family whether or not the differentiating process has taken place. Nevertheless, even in Greek and Roman antiquity the undifferentiated household was never identical with the actual natural family relationship, even though the positive forms of Greek and Roman family life were closely connected with the former.

     Returning to our question we must answer that the denial of a typical leading and qualifying function in the natural immediate family relationship is identical with the denial of its entire typical structural principle, established by the order of creation.

     The natural community between a couple of parents and their children under age is not a relationship with an undifferentiated inner destination. If it were, it would disappear in the advance of the differentiating process in historical development. It would then be a rudiment of a former historical phase. But this view is refuted by the facts.

     Holy Scripture throws a quite different light on the natural communal bond of the family in its most narrow sense, even though it does not give us a theoretical analysis of its typical inner structure. It presents the family as a typical normative bond of love, based upon the natural ties of blood between parents and their immediate off-spring. This is a reflection of the bond of love between the Heavenly Father and His human children, unbreakably bound to the tie between Christ and his Church.

…..

(p 283) The insight into the structural principles of natural and organized communities and inter-communal or inter-individual relationships necessarily leads to the recognition of their inner sphere-sovereignty also within the modal juridical aspect. This does not mean a relapse into a rationalistic metaphysical theory of natural law. It is simply the necessary conclusion from the biblical Christian view of the sovereignty of God, Whose order of creation also embraces the structural principles of the different societal relationships, guaranteeing the inner proper nature of each of them. The Christian view of law has found its most pregnant expression in the recognition of this juridical sphere-sovereignty. But the concrete significance of this fundamental legal principle can only be discussed in connection with the investigation of the enkaptic intertwinements between the different types of societal relationships.

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(p 286) In a differentiated modern society, the cultural education of the children is as a rule completely concentrated in the inner family sphere only in the first years of life of the infants.

   ...It is doubtless true that modern psychology and pedagogy to a considerable degree may help the parents in the fulfilment of their task when they meet with particular difficulties due to an insufficient knowledge of the psychical [ie 'sensory' - FMF] and mental condition of the infant. But it would be a dangerous overestimation of science if it should be supposed that the formative educational task of the parents had better be taken over by a skilled psychologist or pedagogue. The integral character of the education in the family sphere is irreplaceable and in many respects decisive for the whole further life of the children. The children belong to their parents in a personal sense as long as they have not reached the stage of maturity necessary for them to be considered as responsible persons in human society.

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(p 288) ....The modern differentiation of education is to a high degree determined by its preparatory task with respect to the later functions of the human person both in free society and in the State and the Church. But in this entire differentiation the parental cultural shaping of the child in the inner family sphere retains its irreducible and irreplaceable nature. This is why the ancient and modern totalitarian ideas of State education of the children contradict the divine world-order and are indeed inhuman and destructive to human society.

....Finally the structure of the family relationship expresses itself in that typical unity in a multiplicity in which every child owes its origin to the sexual intercourse of one father and one mother. No human licentiousness in sexual matters can undo this state of affairs, that there exists a wonderful numerical relation between parents and children. For from the bi-unity of the parents there comes into existence a third human being, a fourth, etc., who all remain indissolubly bound to the parental bi-unity.

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(p 303)...Even in the purity of its structure according to the divine will, the family is only a temporal expression of the religious meaningfulness of human communion in Christ, in His relation to the Divine Father as the Son. At this point we are confronted with an extremely important state of affairs which is valid for all human societal relationships.

…..

(p 304)....In its subjective temporal reality, affected by sin, a family relationship is indeed often a caricature of what it ought to be. But according to the divine world-order, the anticipatory spheres of the structural qualifying function of a family keep waiting for their disclosure in the transcendental direction. They refer forward to the meaningfulness of love in Christ, in Whom God is our Father, and we are His children. In other words, the typical leading function of a human societal relationship can only qualify the opening process of this individual relationship. But according to the divine world-order this structure cannot be deprived of its direction to the fulness of meaning by arresting it in time. If, nevertheless, in a subjective sense this is taking place, the family remains caught in the civitas terrena, the kingdom of darkness, and even family life becomes a judgment to man.

Marriage is a necessarily bi-unitary bond. Even in polygamy the marriage bond does not itself assume a multiple character.

     The marriage bond is by nature incapable of any change in its individual members; it is essentially a bi-unity of husband and wife entirely dependent on the individuality of the persons united in this communal bond.

     In polygamy these things are essentially unaltered. The husband is not united with more wives in one marriage bond, but in as many marriage bonds as he has wives. This is striking evidence of the fact that polygamy is against nature.

...Marriage, as such, does not allow of such a social form as that of an authoritative organization in which there would be a unity in a multiplicity of more than two marriage partners. Human arbitrariness cannot alter this.

     The marriage bond, as such, is typically founded in the institutional (and not in an incidental) sexual union of husband and wife, which is undoubtedly made serviceable for the propagation of the human race. It is according to the order of the creation that normally marriage leads to the formation of a family. In other words, the typical foundational relation between the family and the conjugal bond implies the natural disposition of the latter to procreation. In this sense marriage may be called the "germ-cell" of the family-relationship. Both communities remain most intensely interwoven during the time of their actual existence.

     Yet marriage, as a love-communion, maintains its own structure notwithstanding its interwovenness with the family.

Is the conception of marriage as a legal institution contradictory to the view that marriage is qualified as a bond of love?

    In our view marriage is qualified as the permanent typical bond of love between husband and wife. But does not this conception contradict the traditional view very generally accepted both in Christian and Humanist circles, which in the marriage-bond assigns only a subordinate place to love? (That this is also done by positivist sociologists is not to the point here, since they intentionally eliminate the normative structural principles of societal relationships.) And does not it rashly encourage the modern irrationalistic conception, already occurring in FICHTE'S actualism, in which the bond of marriage is made dependent on the actual subjective continuance of love between the marriage-partners? If in this sense love is considered to be the real meaning of the marriage-bond, does it not follow that the entire institutional legal aspect of this community is ignored?

     We might have discussed this question implicitly when we examined the structural principle of the family relationship, which we also qualified, in accordance with its internal structure, as a typical bond of love. It is true, we sharply opposed the naturalistic misconception of the normative meaning of love, but we did not yet consider the objections raised by the traditional view against giving "primacy" to the love bond as the essential factor both in the family and in marriage. This had a good reason. For it is the connection between marriage and family that has always been the basis of the traditional objections to the primacy of love in these communities. And it is this connection which is at issue in the present context of our inquiry.

     The traditional scholastical [deriving from Thomas Aquinas' synthesis of Aristotelian and Biblical thought - FMF] conception called marriage an essentially legal institution whose "essence" is determined by its natural aim, viz. the propagation of the human race. The natural law order — and in the Roman Catholic view also the divine supra-natural legal order of the Church — seemed to offer a firm foot-hold for this opinion to oppose the theory of the "primatus amoris" ["primacy of love" - FMF]. Conjugal love was thought of only as a variable and subjective feeling, unsuitable as a "basis" for a permanent life-companionship. Married affection was sometimes considered to be a mere "instrument" for propagation, as the essential aim of the conjugal bond.

     But the internal structural principle of the bi-unitary bond of marriage cannot be grasped with a juridical concept oriented to the natural (and eventually supra-natural) aim of this institution. If the marital community has also an internal juridical aspect, the typical character of the latter is certainly not determined by the natural aim of propagation as assumed by the scholastic natural law view. Civil and canon law contain marital regulations that are far from being a positive juridical expression of the essential inner nature of the institution of marriage. On the contrary, in comparison with the proper internal structural principle of the conjugal bond they only have a formal and external character. The internal legal sphere of marriage, just like the internal law of the family, owes its qualification exclusively to the internal structural principle as a whole. The idea that the juridical function is the "leading" or "qualifying function" of this internal structure is untenable and in open conflict with the Biblical view. Cf., for instance, Ephes. 5 : 31, where the bond of married love is clearly conceived as qualifying the "being one flesh". This bond of love has its religious consummation in Christ's love of His Bride, the Church, which in the supratemporal fulness of meaning is also one body with our Saviour:

    30 οτι μελη εσμεν του σωματος αυτου εκ της σαρκος αυτου και εκ των οστεων αυτου 31 αντι τουτου καταλειψει ανθρωπος τον πατερα αυτου και την μητερα και προσκολληθησεται προς την γυναικα αυτου και εσονται οι δυο εις σαρκα μιαν 32 το μυστηριον τουτο μεγα εστιν εγω δε λεγω εις χριστον και εις την εκκλησιαν

[30 for we are members of his body. 31 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. 32. This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. (NIV)]

     THOMAS AQUINAS also recognized that only as a love-bond marriage is a temporal expression of Christ's relation to His Church. (Cf. 4 Sent. dist. 26q. 2, a.l. ad 3.)

     As soon as the juridical viewpoint acquires the leading role in the conjugal relationship, it is by nature an external legal viewpoint. And if the marriage-partners give to an external legal order the leading role in their communal relationship, this is a clear evidence of the complete ruin of their inner bond. Nor can a civil or canon legal order be the foundation of marriage in its inner structure. This foundation is of a biotic, not of a juridical character. No doubt the juridical structural aspect of the marriage-institution cannot be eliminated, but this holds good for all its other structural functions. [ie the "marriage-institution" - like every other "thing" - functions in all fifteen modalities (see also here and here), though it is "founded" in only one and is "qualified" by one other. Thus Dooyeweerd argues that the "marriage-institution" is founded in the "biotic" aspect, and qualified by the "ethical" aspect. - FMF]

Is the continuity of the marriage bond to be guaranteed exclusively by civil law or canon law?

    If conjugal love is the qualification of the marriage bond, can the latter then be continued when subjectively this love has vanished? And if the answer is in the negative, does not this prove that only as a legal institution marriage can continue to exist, either regulated by civil or by canon law? Our answer is that the marriage institution as such is identical with the structural principle of this community. We know that according to this structural principle its juridical aspect cannot be independent and self-contained. The inner nature of a marriage bond is not determined by a consensual agreement between two persons of different sex which satisfies the conditions determined by civil or canon law. Those who unite as husband and wife enter into an institutional community whose structure is no way dependent on their subjective arbitrary discretion.

     From the outset they are subjected to its institutional law.

     The normative character of the institution of marriage implies that its continuous identity cannot be dependent on the arbitrary way in which from moment to moment the subjects behave in this structural bond. But this does not mean that the continuous identity of the bi-unitary bond of marriage is to be found only on its law-side. There cannot exist any individual community if its structural principle is not subjectively realized to some degree. The unity in duality existing between husband and wife  should be realized subjectively, be it in an imperfect way, in a constant subjective vital union of the above-mentioned structure. In this sinful world the marriage-partners by no means always behave conformably to this structural law.

    But may we yet speak of a marriage bond if the partners constantly adopt an anti-normative attitude with reference to the internal structural principle of their union and continually live together like strangers, or even enemies? In such a case there is no denying that the internal bond of marriage is not subjectively realized, not even in a very imperfect way. Unfortunately this is the state of affairs in many a marriage contracted rashly or from utilitarian motives. Then sin mercilessly puts to shame the tenderest and most intense temporal bond that God in His order of creation has given to man as a task.

The true sense of the civil law (or, at a more primitive stage of society, the tribal law) and the canon law regulations of marriage. Their relation to the internal structural principle of the marriage bond.

     But though as to its internal side a marriage is not subjectively realized, or ruined hopelessly, with regard to its external relations in human society it is not thereby ipso jure [by law itself - FMF] dissolved.

     The marriage bond functions in numerous enkaptic interweavings, and as such it is never a matter that concerns husband and wife only in their relation to each other and to God. It is, just as the family, a pillar of human society. According to the divine order of creation it is a union for life. For these reasons the formal dissolution of the marriage bond may not be left to the sinful arbitrariness of the marriage-partners, especially not in times when public opinion no longer respects the institutional character of this bi-unitary community.

     If marriage can be formally undone so easily, it spells ruin for human society. In its external enkaptic interweavings the conjugal bond comes especially to the fore in its external function as a civil or (at a more primitive stage of society) a tribal law institution. Human licentiousness in this field meets with an external constraint. In case the internal marriage bond has been definitively broken, only the civil or tribal law order is able either to keep an external frame of the bond intact with the constraining power of the State or the tribe, or to give a binding regulation of its formal dissolution. This is important for the external relations of this institution. Canon law on this point has no other primary function insofar as it is intended as an authentic explanation of the so-called law of nature. Only in the Roman Catholic view of marriage as a sacrament are we confronted with the enkaptic interweavings of marriage with the internal sphere of the Roman Catholic Church.

     Civil law or tribal law respectively, regulate the general conditions for contracting or dissolving marriage, together with other points that are of general importance for the civil law relations or the tribal relations respectively, in which the marital bond functions. Canon law does the same from the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical viewpoint. The "lawfulness" of a marriage depends on its satisfying the general conditions of contracting it established by these legal orders. And it may occur that on that issue civil law and canon law are in conflict with one another, though we shall show in our analysis of the inner nature of ecclesiastic law that this can only be caused by disregarding the inner boundaries of the State's or the Church's competence to law making. In other words, in the regulation of these enkaptic interweavings of marriage with other societal relationships it is really the civil, or tribal, or canon law function of marriage that takes the lead.

     Under this leading the external framework of the marriage institution, i.e. its social form, is maintained also in its other modal functions. (Witness, for instance, the external forms of social interaction in which the formal appearance of marriage is maintained even though the true internal bi-unitary bond has been broken). But this external legal framework of marriage should not be confounded with the internal structural principle of this bi-unitary community. The proper internal stability of the latter must never be founded in its supposed essence as a civil, or an ecclesiastical institution. This internal unity cannot at all be maintained by any external legal order, as it can only be realized under the leading of faithful married love.

The false legalistic view of the question concerning divorce.

     Christ's pronouncement in the question of divorce was in particular directed against the confusion of the inner institutional structure of marriage, in its reference to the Kingdom of God, with its external institutional aspect. The whole problem of divorce had been obscured by rabbinical legal formalism. And it is nothing but a relapse into this legalistic view of the matrimonial bond if one tries to derive from the New Testament legal principles for a civil law regulation of the grounds of divorce. These grounds can only refer to the external legal frame of marriage. They can never replace the personal responsibility of the partners in their internal relation to one another under the structural norm of the institution and the central commandment of love. From the internal moral point of view it is not possible to indicate general grounds of divorce. And the civil legislator should be aware that the legal determination of such grounds will always remain defective and liable to evasion. The fact that Christians have come to look upon the marriage bond as essentially a juridical institution must be denounced as a fundamental deformation of the Biblical view of this natural community.

The Thomistic view of the natural essential character of marriage in connection with the theory of the bona matrimonii. Marriage as an institution of natural law.

     In his later systematic elaboration of the theory of the bona matrimonii THOMAS AQUINAS related the marriage institution primarily to its cosmic purpose of propagating the human race. To him this purpose was the real natural essence of the marital bond. This theory, already mentioned in an earlier context, was bound to favour a universalistic view of marriage which seeks to understand the essence of this institution from its enkaptic interweavings in the family, the State and the Church (in HOEGEN's very able thesis, cited in a later context, we find the following statement, on page 52: "The essence of marriage is determined by its purpose." This is an orthodox piece of Thomism.)

     We have established that it is exactly the civil and (with respect to the R.C. Church) the canon law regulations of marriage which in modern Western society play a central and leading role in these enkaptic interweavings. That is why the traditional theory of the bona matrimonii [ie marriage goods/ marriage blessings/ advantages of marriage (see Wiki)] could not but strongly favour the idea of primacy of the legal institution in the marriage bond. Thus to canonists as well as to Roman Catholic moral philosophers marriage remained both a divine and a natural law institution, which Christ had elevated to a "sacrament". In a purely Thomistic-Aristotelian way this conception of marriage as an institution of natural law has been elaborated in our days, e.g. in CATHREIN's ethical philosophy [Moralphil. II (6th ed. 1924) § 3: Die Ehe als naturrechtliche Institution]. Typical of the universalistic attitude in this view is CATHREIN's pronouncement: 'Therefore, according to its nature, marriage is an institution whose principal aim is not the personal welfare of the marriage-partners, but that of the human species, the honourable maintenance and propagation of the human race'. [Op. cit. p. 412. Die Ehe ist also ihrer Natur nach eine Institution, deren Hauptzweck nicht das persönliche Wohl der Ehegatten, sondern das Wohl der menschlichen Art (Gattung), die würdige Erhaltung und Fortpflanzung des Menschengeschlechts ist'.]

     The traditional scholastic view of marriage as primarily a civil or canon law institution on the basis of the law of nature has especially retained its influence among the modern Roman Catholic canonists. One of the most prominent figures among them, R. von SCHERER., writes: The decision to contract a marriage is eminently a matter of private law (juris privati,) but the content and the stability of marriage is rooted in the public law of the legal community, either of the State or of the Church, entirely apart from the creed, the opinion and the will of the contracting parties'.

     A Roman Catholic reviewer of the Dutch edition of my work has observed that this emphasizing of the legal aspect of marriage finds its explanation in the fact that this bond is treated here only from the viewpoint of canon law. This remark, however, is not to the point. SCHERER's pronouncement that both the content and the stability of marriage are rooted in the public law either of the State or of the Church clearly concerns the essence of the marriage institution as such, and not simply its external legal relations. It is true that the essential legal character of this institution is viewed especially from the viewpoint of positive civil and canon law and that its foundation in natural law is presupposed. But this is indifferent to the conception of the marital community as an institution whose essence is determined by law in accordance with its natural aim, the propagation of the human race.

Agapè, eros and orginal sin in LUTHER. The influence of the Thomistic natural-law conception in scholastic Protestant ethics.

     In the Reformation there did not provisionally come a permanent fundamental breach with the traditional view of the essence of marriage as a natural law institution.

     At first LUTHER made an important attempt to arrive at a better conception. He was the great antagonist of celibacy and to the vow of chastity on the part of priests and was fully alive to the unsatisfactory character of the theories of marriage propagated by medieval Scholasticism. It is true that his definition of the marriage bond as "conjunctio unius maris et unius feminae inseparabilis, non tantum juris naturae, sed etiam voluntatis et voluptatis, ut ita dicam, divinae" ["an inseparable joining of one male and one female, not only as a law of nature, but also, so to speak, in accord with divine favour and delight" - FMF] did not contain a clear characterization of the inner nature of this community. Nevertheless, in the explanation of the sixth commandment of the decalogue in his great Catechism LUTHER emphatically established that in the inner sphere of marriage the bond of conjugal love takes the lead: 'Ubi enim volumus conjugali castitati locum esse, ibi necesse est ante omnia, ut vir et mulier in amore concordes conversentur, ut alter alterum ex animo mutua quadam benevolentia et fide complectatur. Quod si praesto fuerit, ipsa quoque castitas sua sponte sine mandato consequetur'. ['For where we would wish the place of marital chastity/purity to be, the main requirement is that, as man and wife agreeably consort in love, there is a mutual kindness and faith from the soul, the said chastity/purity if forthcoming being present spontaneously and without compulsion.' - FMF]. This statement testifies to a conception of married love which is quite different from the purely instrumental view of this love-bond as a necessary means serviceable to the realization of the natural aim of marriage, the procreation. The latter view was for instance defended in the Spanish scholasticism of the 16th century by FRANCISCUS DE VITORIA in his Reflectiones Theologicae, where he observes that the natural aim of marriage is not to be realized "sine mutuo amore et animorum concordia".["without mutual love and concord of minds" - FMF].

     But the dualistic scheme of nature and grace, in its Lutheran conception, in addition burdened with the traditional Augustinian view of sexual pleasure as an effect of original sin, made it impossible for him to gain a pure insight into the marriage-structure as a whole. The sexual eros, as such, was ascribed to the corruption of human nature.

     The result was that the internal structural unity of sexual and love union was split up in an irreconcilable dualism. The pre-Thomistic Roman Catholic view of marriage as a "sacrament" was meant to sanctify the supposed sinful sexual erotic basis of the conjugal union through the "means of grace of the Church".

     This view was rejected by the Reformation, it is true, but in the Lutheran conception the dualism of nature and grace and the relating of sexual pleasure qua talis [as such] to original sin retained its influence [In spite of his fundamental rejection of celibacy and the vow of chastity of monks and nuns, LUTHER thereby remains very much dependent on the Roman Catholic view of marriage as a "less perfect state". This forms a striking contrast with CALVIN'S conception.]

     By appealing to the Thomistic theory of the cosmic purposes of the marriage-institution it seemed to be possible to find a compromise between "sinful nature" and the order of creation. Sexual pleasure was justified in it in a rational "natural" way by an appeal to its procreative purpose. This explains why in the later Lutheran ethics of marriage great emphasis was laid on the divine and relatively natural law character of the marriage institution. It was considered a basic legal ordering of sexual intercourse including the duty of procreation. Nevertheless the reference of marriage to the union of Christ and His Bride, the Church, was not denied .

     In this way the real marriage-problems were almost entirely relegated to the domain of civil law, or that of consistorial law, and consequently externalized.

     Reformed ethics, too, as far as it was affected by Scholasticism, could not get free from the influence of this view.

     In later times, under the influence of the Enlightenment, the rationalistic conception of married love as essentially a "blind passion" was especially prejudicial to a correct insight. When this individualistic rationalism found its way in Protestant ethics there was of course no longer any possibility of a really Christian notion of married love as the most intense moral bi-unity. Symptomatic is the utterance recorded by P. KLUCKHOHN [Die Auffassung der Liebe in der Literatur des 18. Jahrh. and in der deutschen Romantik (Halle, 1922) p. 12.] of the methodist preacher WILLIAM WHITEFIELD (1714-1770), who boasted that in his proposal of marriage there had been no question of love: "God be praised, if I know my own heart a little I am free of that foolish passion which the world calls love". This shows how far the rationalistic utilitarian spirit of the Enlightenment had penetrated under the guise of Puritan piety [There is no doubt that at first the idea of the sinfulness of sexual love as such prevailed in Puritanism and that its connection with a rationalistic utilitarianism was due to the influence of the Enlightenment. However, MARIANNE WEBER is right in saying (op. cit. p. 289) that Puritanism did not stop at a utilitarian view of marriage. On the contrary, it was, as she shows, precisely in these circles that the Biblical conception of the internal nature of marriage as a love-union between husband and wife came strongly to the fore.]

The conception of the marital relationship under the contractual viewpoint in canon law and in the Humanistic doctrine of natural law.

     In the individualistic Humanistic doctrine of natural law the genetic juridical form of the marriage bond was absolutized. This resulted in a denaturation of this natural community to a contractual relationship giving rise to mutual iura in re, viz. the right of using one another's body [Cf. e.g. Hugo de Groot][In Scots law, the rights of someone over the property of another is called Jura in re aliena.]. On the other hand, the contractual viewpoint was not consistently applied as long as one held to the traditional conception of marriage as a permanent union which cannot be dissolved by mutual agreement. This conception was not seriously attacked before the time of the Enlightenment.

     The juridical view of the matrimonial bond as a contract giving rise to iura in re was already developed in detail in canon law. But here the contractual viewpoint was not related to the essence of this institution, but only to marriage "in the state of becoming". In this restricted sense, as the "matrimonium in fieri" (not in esse), the marriage contract was viewed as the source of a real right of husband and wife to each other's body and the mutual tradition and acceptance of this right was related to the purpose of procreation as its "causa". Apart from its contractual source the right mentioned was considered to be essential to the matrimonial bond.

     Thus the Spanish canonist THOMAS SANCHEZ explicitly taught that the essence of marriage is found in the "traditio corporum" ["giving of bodies" - FMF], by means of which each of the partners obtains the ownership of the other's body. KANT, too, was unable to free himself of this view. This is all the more remarkable because in his conception the Humanistic law of nature ("Naturrecht"), developed under the primacy of the science-ideal, was turned into a law of reason ("Vernunftrecht"), in which the personality-ideal is given priority. He even detaches the marital relationship from the procreative purpose and exclusively relates it to mutual subjective sexual enjoyment. Hence his crude definition of the marriage bond as "the union of two persons of different sexes for the life-long mutual possession of each other's sexual qualities".

Reaction in post-Kantian German Idealism in favour of the conception that marriage is a love-union between husband and wife. The Romantic ideal of "free love" versus the institutional character of marriage.

     Not before post-Kantian German Idealism did the immoral character of this conception become apparent under the influence of the ascription of absolute supremacy to the Humanistic personality-ideal. And immediately the love-relation between the conjugal partners found recognition as the essence of the marriage bond, in direct contrast with the earlier one-sided juridical view.

     But now the institutional character of marriage was seriously in danger of being overlooked. For, in an irrationalist-dialectical way, married "love" was considered as a free, subjective higher feeling in which "nature" and "freedom" are dialectically united without any binding to a general norm. Especially in Romanticism this view resulted in the glorification of the ideal of a love that should enjoy life in absolute freedom. This conception implied an explicit opposition to the structural principle of the conjugal bond, to marriage as an institution. The strongly aestheticistic character of the morality of men of genius current among the younger Romantics did not belie its irrationalistic nature, although its protest against the traditional civil-juridical conception of marriage was partly justified.

     In FRIEDRICH SCHLEGEL's novel "Lucinde" (1799) this Romantic ideal of free love, realizing itself in an high-minded harmony of sexual sensuality and spiritual surrender, found its most prominent literary expression. FICHTE, too, though by no means a Romantic, arrived on account of his actualistic [as opposed to "idealist" - FMF] view of sexual love at a conception of marriage which was incompatible with the institutional character of this bi-unitary bond. In a typical functionalistic manner he thought he could deduct the entire essence of marriage from the bare moral notion of love: "If a woman surrenders to a man out of love, the necessary result in a moral sense will be a marriage... The mere concept of love implies that of marriage in the sense indicated" [W.W. IV, 330: 'Ergibt sich das Weib aus Liebe einem Manne, so entsteht dadurch moralisch notwendig eine Ehe... Im bloszen Begriff der Liebe ist der der Ehe, in der soeben angegebenen Bedeutung enthalten'.] This not only means ignoring the entire external civil juridical aspect of the marriage-bond, but essentially also its internal juridical side. In his "Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts" HEGEL tried to remove this error by considering a juridical-moral kind of love as the essence of marriage. Thus the "transitory, capricious and merely subjective" nature inherent in love as "Empfindung" (= "sensation") should give way to an ideal restriction [W.W. VIII (Berlin 1833), 116, 223.]

     HEGEL must be credited with again emphasizing the normative determination of married love, not only in opposition to the rationalistic-Humanistic conception, which was chiefly naturalistic-psychologistic, but also in contrast with the Romantic ideal of free love.

     However, he no more grasped the internal structural principle of the marriage union than did those thinkers whose conception he tried to correct. His view of this bond remains dialectical-functionalistic, misinterpreting the supra-modal character of its structural law founded in the plastic horizon of our experience.

The reaction in Roman Catholic circles in favour of the recognition of the "primacy of love". The "new tendency" and the encyclical "Casti connubii" (1930).

     In Roman Catholic circles the earlier scholastic conception of marriage has never been explicitly abandoned. It is, however, highly interesting to find that here, too, an at least implicit reaction has set in which starts from the primacy of love in this community. At the same time it sharply opposes the misinterpretation of married love as a transient sensual-erotic inclination.

     This "new tendency", whose most gifted representative is DIETRICH VON HILDEBRAND is important also because it runs counter to the older universalistic trends. It emphasizes the absolutely peculiar internal character of the marriage bond as the constant love-union between husband and wife.

     In his Die Ehe (published in 1929) HILDEBRAND writes as follows: 'Love is the primary meaning of marriage according to the creation, just as its primary purpose according to the creation is to produce new human beings. When compared with this primary meaning its function for human society, and certainly its importance for the State, is entirely subordinate. This will become particularly clear to us if we call to mind the peculiar nature of married love...'. [D. von HILDEBRAND, Die Ehe (München, 1929), p. 7: 'Die Liebe ist der primäre Schopfungssinn der Ehe, wie die Entstehung neuer Menschen ihr primärer Schöpfungszweck. Ihre Funktion für die menschliche Gesellschaft, gar nicht zu reden von ihrer Bedeutung für den Staat, sind demgegenüber ganz untergeordnet. Dies wird uns insbesondere deutlich werden, wenn wir uns die Eigenart der ehelichen Liebe ins Bewusztsein rufen...'.]

     I do not overlook the fact that HILDEBRAND's view of the essence of married love as an I-thou-union, (as such far superior to a mere "We-ommunity" as the State or the nation) betrays a strong influence of modern personalist and existentialistic tendencies in immanence-philosophy.

     On the other hand, from a radical-Christian standpoint, we must raise serious objections to many essential parts of his views.

     Let me mention only some critical points. HILDEBRAND hypostatizes the masculine and the feminine principle in creation to a metaphysical difference of essence. This leads him to detaching the inner meaning-structure of married love from its temporal biotic foundation in the organic difference between the sexes. This is a metaphysical speculation, which, of course, does not become more acceptible by a typically Roman-Catholic concentration of the metaphysical feminine principle in the Holy Virgin. His conception that the individual persons in marriage have been interwoven by the conjugal bond into an actual "I-thou" union is essentially dependent on BUBER's personalism. It results in the view that this union transcends all other temporal societal relationships since it implies a central contact between husband and wife, a real meeting in the central sphere of existence. This means an absolutization of the marriage bond which in my opinion is incompatible with the Biblical standpoint.

     We have had to reject the Thomistic teleological-metaphysical axiology, but we can no more accept its modern irrationalistic-romanizing modification in HILDEBRAND's thesis: 'A community ranks higher in proportion to the good which determines the scope of its meaning, or closely connected with this, in proportion to the depth of its point of unity in the human personality, and to the extent to which love plays an essential part in it, and finally in proportion to the directness with which the unifying principle is concerned with our supra-natural destination'. There is also the specifically Roman Catholic distinction between marriage as a "natural union" and as a "sacrament of grace" which is unacceptable from the Reformatory Christian standpoint.

     But in spite of all these serious objections it may be gratefully acknowledged that on many points the writer voices the Biblical-Christian conception of the conjugal bond as a typical and incomparable institutional love-union between husband and wife, as the expression of the eternal love of Christ towards the Church as His Bride.

     In this respect he implicitly contradicts the traditional scholastic theory. This attitude also enables him to oppose the subjectivistic romantic view of married love with its revolutionary consequences.

     HILDEBRAND lays due emphasis on the fact that the tendency to be indissoluble as long as life lasts is naturally implied in the very meaning of marriage as the closest love-union [Op, cit. p. 36: 'Welche Oberflächlichkeit nicht zu verstehen, dass die Tendenz auf Unauflöslichkeit aus dem Sinn der Ehe als engster Liebesgemeinschaft von selbst hervorgeht, sondern sie aus Nützlichkeitsgründen ableiten zu wollen'. 'How superficial to infer this tendency of marriage towards indissolubility from utility-grounds and not to understand that it is a consequence of the meaning of marriage as the closest love-union.']      
     The traditional scholastic theory had lost sight of this, through seeking the only guarantee for the institutional character of this bond in the legal sphere, HILDEBRAND has also sharply realized that the "institution" as such retains its character as a law.

     Real married love indeed postulates a union for life in which the temporal existences of the partners are interwoven into the closest possible temporal unity, which is not possible without conjugal fidelity.

     In virtue of the divine world-order this love necessarily appeals to an internal juridical relation. But the latter is placed under the leading of love and not vice versa. If this love is lacking, the internal conjugal union is really absent. In the second volume we have shown in detail the modal difference and inter-modal meaning-coherence between the sexual eros, as a biotic drive and psychical feeling [see also], and the moral agapè, as normative married love. Of course it is the latter which is meant by the apostle Paul when he stresses the duty of the marriage-partners to love each other [Cf. Ephesians 5: 25-33]. In fact this was not denied by the older Roman Catholic moral philosophers [Cf. CATHREIN, Moralphilosophie II (6e Aufl. 1924), p. 428.] But under the influence of the Aristotelian psychology, love was here primarily conceived of as an affect of pleasure in a corresponding good, originating in a sensory knowledge of this good, which rouses the sensual appetitive power.

     "Spiritual love" — subject to norms — was held to derive from "spiritual knowledge" through the effect of reason (noūs) on the appetitive faculty. This resulted in an elimination of the modal sphere-sovereignty of love, as the nuclear meaning of morality. Love was levelled down to a general analogical concept comprehending every natural appetitive tendency to realize a good [Cf. THOMAS AQUINAS, Summa Theologiae I, 2 ae, q, 26-28. In its widest sense THOMAS defines love as: 'aliquid ad appetitum pertinens, cum utriusque objectum sit bonum' (q. 26 art. 1). This definition explicitly comprises even the natural "appetite" (taken in the Aristotelian sense) of a heavy object "ad locum medium", as "amor naturalis"!]  THOMAS' conception of "spiritual" love was no more modally defined in its meaning than his view of sexual eros and his concept of the good.

     In opposition to this, the modern trend has maintained the specific meaning of love in contradistinction to sensual passion.

      In a short time the new tendency gained ground in Roman Catholic circles, so that, to a certain extent at least, it found official recognition in the well-known encyclical Casti Connubii, issued by Pope Pius XI on the 31st of December 1930. This encyclical frankly assigned "primacy of honour"(principatus nobilitatis) to married love in a Christian marriage. All this was in striking contrast with what happened in Protestant circles two years later, when the moral theologian EMIL BRUNNER, published his book Das Gebot and die Ordnungen, in which love, if viewed as the basis of marriage, was called a "sandy ground" and marital love was identified with erotic inclination!

The internal deepening of the marriage bond by the formation of a family.

     After having gained a sufficient insight into the inner structure of the marriage-bond we shall now try to deepen our insight into its inner coherence with the family. According to the divine order of creation, marriage is intentionally adapted to the family relationship. In the light of our previous explanation this means that marriage is enriched and deepened by its natural interweaving with the family relationship, and conjugal love is deepened and enriched in parental love. How is this to be understood?

     We have rejected the opinion that in conjugal and family relationships the central I-ness of human personality is inter-woven with that of the other members of these communities, and is only thereby formed and deepened.

     The central religious interweaving of the human egos is independent of temporal bonds, although the converse is not true. There is no doubt that the selfhoods of the conjugal partners are for all eternity interwoven in the new root of life, Christ Jesus, if they are really united in Him. This is the religious fulness of meaning of marriage. But in this religious inter-wovenness Christian marriage partners become aware of belonging to one another, not as husband and wife in the temporal marriage bond [Cf. Matth. 22: 30; Mark. 12: 25.], but as children of one Father in Christ Jesus. Here on earth they may only belong to each other "as though they did not" [2 Cf. 1 Corinth 7 : 29-31]. For temporal ties, even the most intense in this life, are perishable; the invisible union with Christ is eternal.

     But this religious union should find its typical expression in the temporal bond of the marriage-partners.

     When the marriage bond has expanded into a family relationship the former is enriched and deepened in its meaning by its close interweaving with the latter, because its bi-unity in conjugal love has produced a unity in plurality.

     In the conjugal union, as such, the expression of the personality in the temporal existence of each of the married persons is enriched, enlarged and completed by that of the other. A woman becomes "wife" in the full sense of the word only in the conjugal union with her husband, and vice versa. And the expression of the personality in the bi-unitary bond assumes a wider and deeper perspective in the multi-unitary bond of the family.

     Yet it is not possible to deduce the essential internal structure of the marriage-bond from the "cosmic purpose of propagation", as was done by THOMAS AQUINAS. This traditional universalistic construction, amply discussed above, necessarily results in an eradication of the boundaries between the marriage union and the family relationship. This is evident from THOMAS' statement that posterity is essential to the marital bond ["Constat quod proles est essentialissimum in matrimonio" (4 Sent. dist. 31, q. I, a. 3, c).]. Such a construction must naturally restrict itself to a deduction of the general institution of marriage from the purpose of procreation. For it cannot be denied that individual marriages that remain childless still retain their character as conjugal bonds. But the structural law and the subjective marital bond subjected to it can never be separated from each other, so that in its application to the factual relationships THOMAS' view leads to constructions of a very artificial and internally contradictory character. We need only mention his explanations of the relation between the individual act of sexual uniting and the "objective procreative purpose". THOMAS concedes that sexual intercourse in a barren marriage, or in general such which is not carried on with a concrete procreative intention, is morally permissible. But then it will not do to seek the inner essence of the conjugal institution in the aim of propagation [THOMAS AQUINAS conceives the procreative purpose only as the essential purpose of marriage in an "objective" institutional sense].

     Then the internal structure of the marriage bond, in its difference from the family relationship, irresistibly forces itself upon us.

     The fundamental difference between animal mating and the human marital bond is that the former does not occur within a communal relationship which in its inner nature is independent of propagation. As soon as the animal offspring is no longer in need of the parental care, or the mating lacks a procreative effect, the couple separates.

     The marriage bond on the contrary, normally embraces husband and wife for life, independent of the natural procreative end.

     No "rational procreative purpose" can justify the sexual consummation of marriage in an ethical sense, but only married love sanctified in Christ. This love (and not a utilitarian kind of thought) is the true regulator and educator of married sexual life towards temperance and chastity.

     In the divine order of creation, marriage is the only ordered way to form a family; marriage and family are mutually adapted to each other. But they retain their own peculiar internal structure and value. If this is ignored or misinterpreted, our marital morality will result in a labyrinth of contradictions of our own creating, and the lucid simplicity of the divine ordinance will be obscured [This word "ordinance" is taken in the Biblical sense, cf. Psalm 119 : 91, of the Authorized (King James) Version].

...The "manus mariti" ["hand (authority) of husband" - FMF] in its autocratic semi-political, semi-proprietary structure, in which the husband even had a jus vitae ac necis [right of life and death - FMF] assigned to him with respect to his wife, cannot be inferred from the internal structural principle of the marriage bond. This authority was only connected with natural marriage in an external enkapsis [ie "structural inter-weaving" - FMF]. The internal structure of marital authority can only be understood from the typical love-union between the conjugal partners in which, according to the divine order of creation, the husband is "the head of the wife". He has to lead her, but by no means to dominate her, because the female part in the bi-unitary bond is perfectly equivalent (though not equal) to the male element and ought to be fully recognized as such. The authoritative relation in its normative internal structure does not in any way detract from the intensity and closeness of the love-relations between husband and wife. On the contrary, marital authority plays an essential role in them [Cf. Ephesians V, where Saint Paul strongly emphasizes this role of marital authority in the love relationship.].

Marital authority and the normal emotional aspect of matrimony. Can psychology speak of "normal"? Cultural influences on female emotional life.

     It cannot be denied that normal female emotional life in the marital bond wants to find support and guidance in the husband, and is disappointed if they are lacking. Also in a man's normal affective life the instinctive impulse to support and lead corresponds to these female needs.

     On a functionalistic standpoint the question may of course be asked: what is a normal male and female life of feeling? Then the deviations from what we have explained above are treated as phenomena of perfectly the same value as those corresponding to this standard.

     But then it should be remembered that it is no longer possible to speak of the structure of male and female feeling; for these structures in the psychical [ie 'feeling' - FMF] aspect of human existence cannot be approached apart from the normative structural functions. They are included in the act-structure of a human body though, in a restrictive or closed sense, they also function in its lower animal structure qualified by instinctive psychical [ie sensory] impulses. No doubt there occur female feelings in men, and male feelings in women. But this cannot be established without a standard for male and female feeling. If we eliminate the coherence between the psychical [ie 'feeling' -FMF] and the later normative structural functions, all the human individuality structures in the feeling-modus are levelled out. Then we are only left with the modal-functional coherence between the most heterogeneous psychic ["sensory"] phenomena.

     It is no doubt correct to say that in the transcendental direction feeling in man and woman is indissolubly bound up with its historical formation in the different cultural periods. A number of psychical differences between the sexes depend on the cultural influences of many successive generations. Modern psychology has rightly set these facts in the light. But this state of affairs is exactly an indication of the indissoluble coherence between the psychic [nothing whatsoever to do with 'occult'!  -FMF] function of feeling and the normative structural functions in human existence. These facts can never be argued against the constancy of the internal-structural principle in the emotional relations between husband and wife. For this principle is already pre-supposed in the historical formation of male and female feeling in marriage.

     Cultural education cannot change the male structure into a female one, nor the other way round. Only a fundamental encroachment upon the biotic structure of the human body would be able to accomplish such a structural alteration because sex difference has a typical biotic foundation. As long as psychology continues to speak of a male and a female feeling-structure, it will be in need of a normative structural principle which itself is independent of the concrete historical development.

     To point out effeminacy in a man's emotional life, implies a normative structural principle lying at the foundation of this statement.

The structural authoritative moment in the internal juridical, aesthetic, and social exchange functions of the conjugal bond.

     The structure of authority in the marital community also has its internal juridical aspect. Even in the best of marital relationships there may occur a difference of opinion about certain matters. Yet the partners will have to come to a decision if their union is to remain intact. According to the internal structural principle, the juridical competence to make a decision belongs to the husband as the head of the conjugal bond.

     But the very structure of marital authority does not permit its autocratic exercise. Marriage is a bi-unitary community under the typical leading of conjugal love; it is not a "State in miniature". That is why political forms of government such as monarchy and democracy cannot be transplanted in the internal domain of matrimony. A wife ought to be co-responsible for such decisions. In internal domestic affairs she is entrusted with the daily management of the household, and not her husband. But also outside of the narrow circle of household affairs the internal structure of the marriage bond requires a loving consultation between the marriage partners with full respect for the internal competence and responsibility of the husband as the "head".

     Civil law, though fundamentally different in character from the internal matrimonial law, should, nevertheless, respect this internal structure of marital authority insofar as the latter also functions "enkaptically" in the civil juridical relations.

     From this point of view it is not recommendable, in case a married couple differ in opinion, to give the civil judge an unrestricted competence to decide.

     In this way, the civil legislator would elevate the internal disturbance of the matrimonial union to a civil juridical rule. Even from a pedagogical point of view this is a dangerous attitude. Of course, when the internal bi-unitary bond in marriage has been subjectively realized, be it in an imperfect and sinful way, the introduction of the civil judge as the supreme power of decision above the marriage partners will not have any practical sense. But this bond may be disturbed to such a degree that with regard to internal marital affairs the marriage partners are opposed to each other as parties in a civil law-suit. Only in such cases may the view arise that an impartial judge must be entrusted with the decision. The question in how far a task is to be ascribed to the civil judge in this situation will be discussed in a later context. We shall then try to find the internal boundaries set to civil law in the enkaptic structural interlacements within the juridical law-sphere.

     The internal structure of marital authority is also expressed in the aesthetical law-sphere. The original matrimonial harmony presupposes the complete concord of the male and female elements in the conjugal relations, in accordance with their own structural character. The wife should not play the typical leading part of the husband. If she does take the lead in a general sense, the situation seems aesthetically wrong to us. The consideration that perhaps the husband is a weakling and that this fact necessitated the wife to take the lead, cannot obviate our impression of disharmony.

     The structure of authority also expresses itself in the social and in the lingual [ie 'symbolic' - FMF] aspect. The positive, historically founded social and symbolic forms of association between husband and wife differ, of course, according to place and time. The forms used at the time of the patriarch Abraham cannot do duty in our days. The utterance of St. Peter about this question in his first epistle does not mean to contradict this state of affairs [1 Peter 3:6 as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord. ESV]. But the structural principle of marriage, which is not dependent on the historical development, should find expression also in the internal social and symbolic relations. These relations ought to be very tender and close, but the leading position of the husband should constantly be given expression in them, which is something different from the required mutual respect for each other's person. As soon as in the internal marital union the social [aspectual - FMF] and the symbolic [aspectual - FMF] respect for the husband as the head of the community has been lost, we are confronted with a subjective infringement of the internal vital law of marriage.

The original biotic foundation of marital authority, which cannot be interpreted as its ground of justification.

     In the last instance marital authority has its typical foundation in the aspect in which marriage itself is originally founded, viz. the biotic sphere. The leading role of the husband in sexual intercourse, and the passive receptive part of the wife form the original basis of the meaning-individuality of marital authority in the retrocipatory direction of cosmic time. In the Middle Ages this functional-biotic basis of marital authority was misconceived in many respects. This was due to the influence of primitive biological notions derived from ARISTOTLE about the genesis of the female offspring in consequence of a deficiency in the natural process. Nature was supposed to show an androcratic tendency in the procreative process. As a consequence the wife was thought to be essentially imperfect and by nature subjected to the husband. For this reason THOMAS AQUINAS calls woman "mas occasionatus" ["an imperfect man" - FMF] according to her genesis, which is in perfect agreement with ARISTOTLE'S views. As a marriage partner she was supposed to be only "aliquid viri" and not "civis simpliciter". Apart from these Aristotelian and medieval misconceptions, it stands to reason that in the light of our cosmonomic Idea the "justification" of marital authority cannot be found in its original biotic foundation as such. Marital authority has no other justification than the divine ordinance revealed in the normative structural principle of this community as a whole. On the Christian standpoint there can be no question of a "rational justification" in the Platonic and Aristotelian sense, or in that of the Humanistic theory of natural law.

     The divine order of creation is not grounded in "reason", but inversely human "reason" is grounded in the divine order. Theoretic "reason" can only try to trace the structural principles that God has ordained for human society in His temporal world-order and which alone enable us to experience the factual societal relationships in their different inner nature. Apart from the structural principle of the marital bond, philosophy will seek in vain for a tenable justification of the husband's authority in its typical character.

The structural principle should also be the hypothesis of ethnological researches after marital relations. The interpretation of the facts in accordance with their meaning-structure and the positivistic attitude in science.

     This structure cannot be ignored with impunity neither in practical social life nor in social science and philosophy.

     Ethnological research after the internal marital conditions in different primitive societies should also be based on this structure as its hypothesis. Then we shall avoid the error of confounding the genuine marital relations with societal relationships of an entirely different structure and we shall no longer run the risk of repeatedly misinterpreting the facts.

     At this point the supposedly neutral positivistic conception of science will accuse our standpoint of intruding "metaphysically founded evaluations" into the investigations of the "facts". At a deeper level this fundamental contrast hides a basically different view of experiential reality. "Facts" can only be conceived in their structural meaning. If the attempt is made to examine the facts of societal relations apart from their normative structural principles on account of a naturalistic or positivistic historicist prejudice, the result will be a falsification of the data.

     Ethnological research after conjugal and family relations is concerned with subjective phenomena within realized supra-arbitrary institutions, which cannot be understood apart from their internal structural principle. Neither the contradictory notion of merely arbitrary ("empirical") norms, nor that of constructive "ideal types" as applied by MAX WEBER, can replace the genuine structural principles of matrimonial and family relationships. The nominalistic prejudice in positivistic science inevitably leads to a complete eradication of the fundamental boundaries between the various structures of human society.

The misinterpretation of the so-called matriarchal phenomena in the older evolutionist ethnology.

     The older naturalistic evolutionist tendency made the most consistent attempt to eliminate the structural principles of marriage and family as the hypothesis of ethnological research. But it was exactly this trend which indulged in the most phantastic interpretations of the facts. Its evolutionistic construction of the development of marriage and family life was presently popularized by the social democratic theorists ENGELS and BEBEL. It was founded on a complete misunderstanding of the so-called matriarchal phenomena.

     This misconception had been introduced into ethnology by LEWIS H. MORGAN, who was strongly influenced by the Swiss law-historian J. J. BACHOFEN, though the latter was a romantic thinker rather than a Darwinian evolutionist. MORGAN's evolutionistic theory has by now been generally rejected as unscientific. But we may establish that he would never have construed such erroneous conceptions from a defective material of ethnological facts, if he had not first purposely eliminated the basic structural principles of marriage and family.

     The theory of matriarchy was propounded by BACHOFEN in his famous work Das Mullerrecht, eine Untersuchung über die Gynäkokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religiösen und rechtlichen Natur (Stuttgart, 1861). He tried to prove that human sexual intercourse had started with an initial stage of absolute promiscuity. For this thesis he adduced the "matriarchal phenomena", already found among various peoples of antiquity (e.g., the Lycians). These peoples computed kinship, and often the right of inheritance, from the mother and not from the father. BACHOFEN explained this by assuming that originally sexual relations were so irregular that the family was formed with the mother for its centre and not with the unknown father.

     From such conditions original matriarchy or gynarchy developed since the invention of agriculture, which must be ascribed to women, so that the original family was not patriarchal but matriarchal. Patriarchy was the next stage in the development of human family life.

     BACHOFEN set forth this view in the mythological symbolic forms of late Romanticism. His theory was completely rationalized and systematically elaborated in a Darwinist sense by the American ethnologist LEWIS MORGAN.

     According to the latter the human family passed through the following stages of development: 1) unlimited' promiscuity of sexual intercourse; 2) the kinship family (in which only sexual intercourse between ascendants and descendants is prohibited); 3) the "punalua family" (sexual intercourse is forbidden between brothers and sisters as well; the women of one half of the tribe are accessible to the men of the other and vice versa; group-marriage); 4) matriarchal "syndasmic" family (the initial stage of individual marriages, polygamy, uncertainty about the father); 5) patriarchy, a polygamous family; 6) a monogamous individual marriage.

     This constructive evolutionist theory (criticized already in its palmy days by distinguished ethnologists like C. N. STARKE, E. WESTERMARCK and E. GROSSE) has been completely refuted by the ethnological researches of Father W. SCHMIDT R. J. SWANTON, X. R. H. LOWIE and others, so that it can no longer be taken seriously.

     In his book Die Stellung der Pygmäenvölker lin der Entwicklungsgeschichte der Menschheil (Stuttgart, 1910), which should be consulted with a critical mind, SCHMIDT shows that with the pygmean peoples monogamous marriage is predominant. This is all the more important as the pygmies are among the comparatively oldest extant representatives of the human race. This fact has at any rate been established, however much opinions may differ with regard to the "problem of the pygmies". As for North-America, the territory which was supposed chiefly to supply the material for MORGAN's theory, R. J. SWANTON showed the absolute untenability of the matriarchy and promiscuity theory as early as the year 1905 [The Social Organisation of American Tribes in American Anthropologist, N.S. VII, 663-673]. And the well-known American ethnologist R. H. LOWIE in his book Primitive Society explicitly states: 'Sexual communism (after the manner of the "group-marriage") as a condition replacing individual marriage, is nowhere to be found at present. And the evidence of its earlier occurrence must be rejected as insufficient' [R. H. LOWIE, Primitive Society (1st ed. New York 1920; 2nd ed. 1929, pp. 58-59)].

     With reference to the bilateral family the same author remarks: 'In a word, the bilateral family (i.e. the family consisting of husband and wife and their children) is an absolutely universal unit of human societal life'.

     It was particularly the introduction of the "culture-historical" method in genetic ethnological research which caused the complete defeat of the older constructive evolutionist theory. For it put an end to the arbitrary grouping of facts and their interpretation according to an a priori evolutionist scheme.

The "Kulturkreislehre" [I.e. the doctrine of "cultural circles"] and the normative evaluations of married and family life among primitive peoples.

     The culture-historical trend in modern ethnology is represented by two schools, viz. the so-called "Kulturkreislehre" and the so-called critical school of the American scholar FRANZ BOAS.

....

     It is an undoubted fact that the introduction of a cultural scientific method in ethnology has meant a great gain. Once for all the idea has been given up that "primitive" peoples ("Naturvölker") have no history at all. It is also a gain that this method broke with the constructive evolutionist manner of thought. Quite a different point is the question as to whether different adherents of the "Kulturkreislehre" have sufficiently freed themselves from this evolutionism, and if especially the economic factors are not too much treated as if they influenced societal relations in a natural-causal way. In this connection the very just remarks of the North-American ethnologist R. H. LOWIE in his book Primitive Society with respect to such economic explanations are worth listening to.

     Our objections raised against the "Kulturkreislehre" chiefly referred to the eradication of the boundaries between ethnology and history proper. But we want especially to emphasize the great merits of various adherents of this view (W. SCHMIDT, KOPPERS, and others) in their researches after the marriage, family and kinship relations among primitive peoples. These Roman-Catholic scholars seriously tried to base their investigations on the structural principle of these communities as given in the order of the creation. It is true that their characterization of these relationships as "Sympathieverbände" (bonds of sympathy) is still too vague. Perhaps as a consequence of the influence of the traditional scholastic view they approach the internal marriage and family relations among primitive races still too much from their external popular juridical regulations. Nevertheless, these authors have penetrated to the insight that, according to their internal structure, these relationships cannot be conceived apart from their normative structural law but must be qualified as typical love-bonds. And this again and again causes them involuntarily to distinguish between the external and the internal functions of these communities. For a correct interpretation of the facts this is methodologically very important.

     As SCHMIDT and KOPPERS maintain the supra-arbitrary structural principles of marriage and family relations, they also point to the fatal influence of some external forms within which these relations have to be realized among the different primitive peoples of the so-called primary and secondary cultures. These influences are fatal to the internal solidarity, purity and intimacy of these communal bonds. Of course, from the "anti-axiological" point of view in ethnology this is only an objectionable confusion of science and a world-and life-view.

     The truth is, however, that the supposedly unbiased scientific view starts from a nominalistic ["denial of universals" - FMF] a priori, viz. that the subjective human societal relations can be grasped apart from their supra-arbitrary structures of individuality.

     Even on the biological natural scientific standpoint it is unavoidable to state that certain external environmental factors are destructive to a living organism. How then should it be contrary to the scientific standpoint when the Christian ethnologist establishes that certain external factors (often of a typical historical foundation and economic qualification), like matriarchy and polyandry, have a disturbing influence upon the internal marital and family relations? Could the reason be that such axiological statements presuppose the handling of normative structural principles in ethnological research, which should be eliminated in order to conceive the social facts in an unbiased way? But we have seen that apart from these normative structural principles the facts do not reveal their true societal meaning.

     The total elimination of these principles which only enable us to speak of marriage and family in a univocal scientific sense, makes any exact ethnological investigation of the factual marital and family relations impossible. The nominalistic ["denial of universals" - FMF] prejudice which lies at the foundation of this elimination is not warranted by science, and is bound to result in a continual misinterpretation of the facts.

.....

(p 345) In its normative meaning-structure the family bond points above time to the religious community of mankind in Christ. In Him all reborn human beings find the religious fulfilment of their temporal kinship ties as members of the human race on the basis of palingenesis ["rebirth", "regeneration", "re-creation" - FMF] [Cf. Mark. 3 : 34, 35. - And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother" (ESV)].

(Abridged extract from "A New Critique of Theoretical Thought" by Herman Dooyeweerd, Vol. III, pp 266-345)

ADDENDUM: 
Extract from:  
Center and Periphery: The Philosophy of the Law-Idea in a changing world by Herman Dooyeweerd (1964 lecture)(Translated by Dr. J. Glenn Friesen)

    And now the question of sociology as a science in a narrower sense, thus as a non-philosophical science, well yes, there we have this unhappy fact that the traditional view of sociology is that sociology exclusively investigates our factual societal relationships, in order to explain them in a causal way, leaving the normative views of these matters outside the field of sociology. They then say that these norms belong to legal science, or to ethical theory, and so forth. Now I have tried to show that this view is in conflict with social reality – that such a reality does not exist. The whole social reality as such, what we call social facts, can only be ascertained by the application of norms and lines of responsibility. For example, if I say that there is a marriage between A and B, then I undoubtedly have a social relationship in view, which also has its juridical aspect. But it is a real social relationship. It is a social fact that this is a marriage. But I cannot establish that fact without the application of norms. How else would I be able to distinguish marriage from concubinage or from a relationship of free love? And so on. If I say that someone is a minister, then without a doubt I am relating a social fact. But can I establish that without applying a norm? Being a minister presupposes qualifications, it presupposes an office. Yes, these are all things that I can only establish by applying norms.
    In other words, this is the dilemma for sociology: is it a true science in the sense of wetenschap or is it ‘science’ in the English sense? [wetenschap [nf] 1.(cognition, knowledge, noesis) the psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning. 2. (science, scientific_knowledge) knowledge accumulated by systematic study and organized by general principles. 3. (skill, science) ability to produce solutions in some problem domain. 4. (science, scientific_discipline) a particular branch of scientific knowledge. (Lookwayup)] Americans are presently much broader in their understanding of ‘science,’ for they understand it to also mean normative science. But the English have not yet come that far, for they sharply distinguish between science and the arts. And they say, "okay, legal science as a normative science, and ethics, the ethical science–those are arts but not science, for science concerns reality as it really is, the facts. And the arts, they can of course say how things ought to be. That’s the way these two areas are, and they should be that way; they should not be mixed up with each other". All right, but then I must state that it cannot all be reduced to social reality. For if from out of social reality, we try to abstract social norms in the broadest sense of the word from out of social reality, then we do not retain any single social fact. And here, where sociology concerns itself as a non-philosophical science, and concerns itself with facts – here is now a point where from a Christian standpoint, I believe we are forced to also make our Christian voice heard. And in my view what we must say is this, that this whole dualism of what is and what ought to be [sein en sollen], which ever since Immanuel Kant has established itself as a kind of dogma, that this can be shown to derive from a dualistic religious Ground-motive. The humanistic Ground-motive is what I have sketched out as a motive of nature and freedom. On the one hand, there is the motive to control nature by means of scientific causal thought, and on the other hand there is the area of morals, ethics in a broader sense and the area of belief, as the domain of the autonomous freedom of the human personality. These two domains were separated from each other and now it is put forward as a scientific axiom that there are sciences and there are the arts, fine arts [kunst] therefore, and skills [kunstvaardigen]. They say that fine arts have to do with practical things and therefore also with norms, but that the sciences have to do exclusively with how things are [met het zo zijn], with facts and not with norms. And now the Christian voice must be heard, the Christian answer in my opinion. But that cannot be reduced to social reality.
     ... And now with respect to "help", which you of course have discussed in your dissertation [Dooyeweerd is answering a post-lecture question from a Mr. van de Berg], and which you now want to view as an aspect, I don’t believe that that is possible, for "help" has various aspects. Think first of all of the moral aspect, that of the temporal relationships of love, relations of love between people with the requirement of universal love of neighbour, and then of love practiced in a narrower sphere, etc. For there are various typical relations of love. We know about spousal love between man and wife, we know of paternal and maternal love, the love of elders with respect to their children. We know about common love for one’s country, which binds us together. We also know the love towards those of the same faith, at least we ought to know about it. Yes, we find ourselves in an area where again and again, we find ourselves coming into contact with analogies. For in the temporal horizon of experience there is in fact one aspect in which love has an original aspect, and that is the moral aspect. I have thought about this a lot, and analyzed it a lot. I have not yet ever been able to discover another meaning-kernel for the moral aspect than that of love in its temporal relation.
(1964 Lecture: "Centre and Periphery" [PDF] pp 38-41)(Translated by Dr J. Glenn Friesen)