The Place of Marriage Theory
婚姻论的位置
This paper is Paper 0 of Marriage Theory: written last, placed first. It lays down no propositions; it only does a few things for those who read this series: it states this series' place in SAE, sets out how far it reads and what its main line is, gives the method and the shared words the papers have in common, interfaces as a whole with several traditions, says once, all together, the directions of colonization read in the papers, lists together the forty-five propositions of the whole series, and registers the remainders that stay unsettled.
Marriage Theory is the second branch downstream of SAE Relation Theory, following Love Theory. Relation Theory establishes only the part all relations have; Love Theory reads the part that lies in love, and handed over the stretch in which there are both commitment and institutional protection. Marriage Theory reads only the marriage of two people, and does not claim that other forms are not marriage; what it reads is marriage that carries the 15DD direction, that is, marriage in which both people are headed in the direction of recognizing the other as an end too. This direction is the premise; under this premise, marriage is made up of three things: love, each person's own commitment, institutional endorsement. The main line in one sentence: You are you, I am I, and only then is there an us; we each look beyond ourselves, toward the other, toward someone who has not yet come. The seven papers read, in order: what the marriage this series reads is; "we" and each their own; bringing each other into their own; the long years; preparing for a child; after a third one has come; staying and leaving.
This paper interfaces as a whole with Augustine, with Xian and Heng in the Book of Changes, with Li Zhi and with Brake. The directions of colonization read in the papers borrow things that are, or may come to be, in a marriage: endorsement, vows, "we," the household, division of labor, children; some of these are not in every marriage, and are not on that account components of marriage either. These things carry no direction in themselves; the direction is read on the one effect in which they are taken up to do something. Where many things are bound together, the places that can be taken up to slide in the direction of colonization are many too; relations are all mixed, a single sliding is read on that one occasion, and it is not on that account judged that a marriage has exited scope. This paper proves no proposition at the object layer.
Introduction
The seven papers that follow each read one thing. Paper 1, Joined, reads what this series means by marriage: one premise, three things; commitment; endorsement; where exclusivity comes from; which kinds of marriage are not in this series. Paper 2, Each Their Own, reads the "we" in marriage: You are you, I am I, and only then is there an us. Paper 3, Into One's Own, reads looking toward the one person at one's side, letting the other grow into the other's own self. Paper 4, The Years, reads the long years: people change, and after they change, they choose again together; division of labor and exchange; expression and expectation; conflict and sediment. Paper 5, For One Not Yet Here, reads two people creating conditions together for someone who has not yet come. Paper 6, Three, reads what lies between husband and wife after a third one has come. Paper 7, Staying and Leaving, reads how the marriage this series reads ends: the ending of love, breaking the commitment, exit and divorce, bereavement of a spouse.
Written this way, several things are left that no single paper takes care of: why this series is here, and how far it reads; how the main line strings the seven papers together; the method the papers share, and what the same word means in which paper; several traditions whose questions concern the whole series; what the directions of colonization read in the papers look like when set side by side. This paper takes care of these.
Method as in the papers: the conclusions of upstream papers are said in plain words, and sources and extensions go in the notes. This paper lays down no propositions, and alters no sentence of the papers that follow. How the pieces upstream handed to Marriage Theory are placed is for readers who want to check against upstream, and goes in the appendix at the end.
§1 Place: The Second Branch Downstream of the Relational Side
SAE has three sides: the subject side, the relational side and the institutional side. The relational side is unfolded by Relation Theory; once Relation Theory is written, there are several branches downstream: Love Theory, Marriage Theory, Parent-Child Theory and Cooperation Theory; friendship is not given a branch of its own, and serves as a running example through all the branches.1 Love Theory is the first branch, Marriage Theory the second.
The division of labor between the two layers Relation Theory has written out: Relation Theory in the abstract establishes only what all relations have; what holds only in one kind of relation is handed to the series on that kind of relation to argue.2 So whatever has already been laid down at the layer of relation, this series uses directly and does not rewrite: the minimal conditions of a relation, the two directions of cultivation and colonization, expectation, commitment, the sediment of dealings, ending, are all read by Relation Theory. Love within marriage is read by Love Theory, and is not rewritten either.
The boundary with Love Theory is handed over on one line of The Story of the Western Wing: "May all the lovers under heaven be joined as husband and wife." Love Theory reads the lovers; joined as husband and wife, "with commitment and, besides, institutional protection," they have come into Marriage Theory. Love does not end because two people have been joined as husband and wife; there is love after marriage too.3 Paper 1 picks up from this line, and reads it as three things: being lovers is love; being joined as husband and wife is commitment and endorsement.
What holds only in marriage has to be compared with the relations next to it. Against friendship: How Is Institution Possible (Foundational Paper 6; cited as F6) writes of friendship: "Subtract exclusivity and deep commitment from marriage";4 against love: exclusivity and commitment are both already present in Love Theory. What holds only in marriage falls where commitment and endorsement are together, and on the public side that endorsement brings to commitment and exit (Paper 1, MA7). Shared life and preparing for a child can be in a marriage, but are not only in marriage, and need not be in a marriage; they are content this series has to read, not a threshold of marriage.
Besides Relation Theory and Love Theory, this series' main upstream includes the paper of Meaning Theory that reads the outward side of a relation.5 Relation Theory reads the effects between two people; Meaning Theory reads a person's direction, and where its outlet falls. Bringing each other into their own and preparing for a child both have the outlet of a direction falling outside oneself; this layer is read by Meaning Theory.
§2 Scope and Main Line
Scope. There are six items.
First, the marriage of two people. This series reads only marriage in the traditional sense, that is, the marriage of two people; it does not claim that marriages of other forms are not marriage; other forms it does not read, and does not judge. The parties are adults, of any sex; for illustration the examples use the traditional pairing of a man and a woman.
Second, marriage that carries the 15DD direction. In SAE's levels, the layer at which the other is recognized as an end too is written 15DD.6 What this series reads is marriage in which both parties are headed in this direction. A direction, not a state: headed toward it, not necessarily already there; people are all mixed; a layer records one operation, not a person, nor a marriage, and falling back is read as it occurs. "Both" is scope, not a requirement between husband and wife: each party can confirm only his own end; the other end appears as the other party's first-person avowal and where he stands, which I do not certify, nor cancel on his behalf (Paper 1, MA2). The whole series is written as a conditional: when two people are headed in this direction, how marriage is made up, and how it works.7 From outside, a real marriage is not characterized; only clues are seen.
Third, the premise and the three things. The direction is a premise, not a component. Under this premise, marriage is made up of three things: love, each person's own commitment, institutional endorsement. The three do different work and cannot stand in for one another; they are also read differently: love is seen from the subject's side; commitment is seen from outside, by words and deeds and the structure they leave; endorsement is seen by that institution's rules (Paper 1, MA1). Marriage cannot simply be reduced to commitment.
Fourth, what is not read. A purely transactional marriage; a marriage in which the love between the two is entirely gone, whether the two still need this marriage or keep it up only by their own commitments; a marriage whose exit has been sealed off, however it was sealed. Each of the three is read differently; where either of the latter two arises after marriage, that marriage exits scope from then on; this is not traced back, and this series does not turn and judge the two people (Paper 1, MA9). Where one party's love is gone, that marriage too is no longer in this series from then on (Paper 7, MA40). Here only structure is looked at; minds are not read, and there is no criticism: of the two kinds without love, no separate judgment is made of who has treated whom as a means. Not reading them is not saying they are not marriages. The concrete process by which a child comes into the world is not within this series' range.
Fifth, the upper bound stops at 15DD. The instant at which two one-ways meet, that is, the moment of 16DD, Love Theory Paper 6 has already read; it is pointed back to here, not read again. The kind in which two people are in mutual non dubito at any time and in any place, Relation Theory hands to each branch to argue for itself;8 Marriage Theory's answer is the same as Love Theory's: it does not take it up; it only registers it, and does not prove that it does not exist.
Sixth, the boundary with neighboring series. Love within marriage belongs to Love Theory; what lies between parents and children belongs to Parent-Child Theory; doing things together in general belongs to Cooperation Theory, and Marriage Theory reads only doing things together within marriage; the institutional side of marriage belongs to the institutional side, and is only registered here; what has been laid down at the layer of relation is read by Relation Theory.
Main line. In plain prose it is one sentence: You are you, I am I, and only then is there an us. We each look beyond ourselves: toward the other, toward someone who has not yet come.
The first sentence is the premise; it comes from the SAE Marriage Principles in the appendix to F6,9 and is argued in Paper 2. Whenever "we" is said in marriage, it divides, as in Relation Theory, into two branches, doing things together and mutual recognition; neither branch comes before the two people, nor stands above them; it does not legislate, and does not pass final judgment on either party's own law (Paper 2, MA10).
The second sentence speaks of two kinds of looking toward. Put technically: in the 15DD direction, the meaning of each of the two people in a marriage belongs to each, and the outlet of a direction falls outside oneself: on the other, letting the other grow into the other's own self; on someone who has not yet come, creating conditions for him together. The attribution of meaning is in each person: "the attribution endpoints are closed in one person";10 the outlet can be outside, the two people's directions can cross, and each one's relation is still anchored in each one, not merged into one (Paper 2, MA11). Nor does it follow from the closure of attribution in one person that a person is self-sufficient and needs no outside.11
The two kinds of looking toward differ in structure. Looking toward the other is bringing each other into their own: two one-ways, neither waiting for the other to bring him into his own first, have met; if they do not meet, each one's share is still there as before; bringing someone into their own is cultivation, and creating conditions and questioning are its two main ways (Paper 3). Looking toward someone who has not yet come is preparing for a child: the two people each have their own purposes and do one thing together: you for A, I for B, and we do C together; C is the doing of creating conditions together for that person, not the child (Paper 5).
One more sentence strings the seven papers together: marriage is not one promise; it is the same promise made anew each day; whoever stands there on any given day is the person of today (Paper 1, MA4). How the long years are lived (Paper 4), how things are after a third one has come (Paper 6), how it ends (Paper 7), are all read under this sentence.
§3 Method
The whole series is written by the following rules.
A layer records one operation; people are all mixed. It does not record a person, nor a marriage; between husband and wife, neither judges at which layer the other is.
Structure, not good and bad. Marriages are not ranked by length, by stability, by whether there are children, or by what has been achieved.
Issue no ought; do not argue for specific rules. The SAE Marriage Principles in the appendix to F6 are a working demonstration, not evidentiary.12 This series argues for the principles they contain, writes them by structure, and quotes their sentences as they stand; specific rules serve only as examples. Where a sentence carries evaluative or quantitative wording, the place where it is quoted marks on the spot that this layer is not taken; where they do not fit published Relation Theory, Relation Theory governs.
Only relation. The institution's power and recognition-based rights are only registered, not argued, and no propositions are derived from these two concepts; what a person does by way of a construct is read as between person and person; the rules themselves are acknowledged but not judged.13
The object layer and the operation layer kept apart; said only conditionally. The object layer reads marriage, with love, in which both parties are headed in this direction; at the operation layer each party confirms only his own end. Love is seen from the subject's side, and cannot be read from outside; a purely transactional marriage is an ideal type; a person's sealing himself in with a vow is a first-person matter; if what holds up that lock is an outside saying, it is read as colonized, and this cannot be seen from outside either; these are all said only conditionally.
Do not read minds; look at acts, look at structure. Commitment, breaking it, dropping and exit are read by words and deeds and by structure; whether one acknowledges something in one's heart, whether one has been stirred, is not judged. The two faces of non dubito, too, are read from outside only by words and deeds and by structure.
Cultivation and colonization in the broad sense. They name the direction of one effect, not labels attached to persons or marriages: cultivation goes toward making space, colonization toward pouring in and occupying; the direction is read on this one effect, and whether it took hold is seen in the other party's later understanding and action. Violation is judged separately, only at the layer of basic rights.14 "Slides" and "tendency" are not read as having already taken hold.
A moment of exchange and the sediment after it are read apart. The moment is read as falling back, and a whole marriage is not characterized by one occasion; division of labor sliding into a fixed requirement aimed at the other, being surreptitiously swapped within habit, the path to saying no becoming hard to travel: these are read separately, as sediment.
Coin no new words unless necessary; what belongs elsewhere is pointed back to, not rewritten. Love within marriage belongs to Love Theory; what lies between parents and children belongs to Parent-Child Theory; the structures and interfacing at the layer of relation belong to Relation Theory.
Quantitative wording is checked separately. It is not said that the longer, the truer, or the steadier, the better; "more," "the more ... the more" and "most," used of marriage, are all checked separately.
Examples. Only adult characters are used; for illustration the examples use the traditional pairing of a man and a woman; each paper has its own couple. Made-up examples are used only to see structure; a married couple's words and deeds are only clues, and do not certify who is at which layer. Historical examples are read for structure and direction only by the words and deeds in the historical sources, without judging whether the two loved each other or were headed in this direction; only the deceased, whose records are public, are used; matches in which a party was a minor at marriage are not used as examples; a purely transactional marriage is not used as a positive example, and appears only where traditions are interfaced and press on this series.
Interfacing with tradition. Only thought and philosophy are interfaced with; literature serves as examples; a writer of literature who argues a thesis counts as philosophy. For each, this series writes faithfully what he sees, why he looks, where he presses, where they meet and where they part; not every figure needs all these steps, and where no counter-proposition aimed at this series can be drawn from the source, no pressing is invented. Other traditions appear in their own words. Figures are interfaced with by question, and no philosopher is assigned a layer. What has already been interfaced at the layer of relation and the layer of love is pointed back to; when it is pointed back to, the restrictions of that place come along.
Sources and extensions. The conclusions of upstream papers are said in plain words in the main text; sources, original sentences and the proposition numbers of other papers go in the notes; what is carried beyond its original place is stated to be an extension, this series' own undertaking.
§4 Shared Words
Several words are shared across the papers, and their senses have to be kept apart.
Institution. The broad sense: "marriage and friendship are micro-relational institutions";15 when institutional endorsement is spoken of, institution means instead the construct outside the two people that, by its own rules, recognizes this union, formal or informal. The relation between the two people is itself also a kind of construct; it does not legislate, and bears nothing; a little circle of two does not form a third bearer (Paper 1).
Institutional endorsement and institutional protection. They refer to the same thing. Endorsement is thicker, and stronger: protection says only what that institution has given this union; endorsement also says what the two people have done: made this union public to it, recognized its power, and obtained recognition from it in return (Paper 1).
Exchange, obtaining in return, division of labor, and mutuality. Exchange is between husband and wife: you give me this, I give you that; a moment of exchange is falling back (Paper 4). Obtaining in return is between the two people and the construct that endorses; it is between persons and a construct (Paper 1). Division of labor is a present arrangement the two have acknowledged together, not a mutual requirement (Paper 4). Mutuality is two one-ways meeting, not conditioned on the other's giving first, or on the other's being sure to give (Paper 3).
Pure transaction. It speaks only of what lies between husband and wife: both parties treat the other only as a means. A couple hoping for a child to carry on the family line is not on that account purely transactional; if the child is treated only as a condition, that is read separately (Paper 1, Paper 5). A marriage kept up after the love between the two is entirely gone is not on that account read as purely transactional either: it is not in this series because love is lacking, and no separate judgment is made of who has treated whom as a means (Paper 1, MA3).
Purpose and end. In the Chinese of this series these are one word, with two senses. "The layer of purpose," as in Love Theory, is written 14DD: she has become where I am going; "Others also make sense, but I cannot exchange her";16 this is my own direction. The end in "recognizing the other as an end too" is at 15DD: the other has where the other is going, which is not a point within my direction. When it is said that using love to demand exclusivity "falls back to the layer of purpose (14DD)," the former sense is used: taking my direction as her ruler (Paper 1). In everyday speech the same word also means why one does something; when Paper 5 says that two people each have their own purposes, this sense is taken.
Direction. Three senses, as in Love Theory.17 To speak of the 15DD direction is to speak of the place one is headed toward and has not yet reached; to speak of the two directions of cultivation and colonization is to speak of where one effect is headed; to speak of a person's own direction is to speak of where he is going (Paper 3).
Commitment. Read as in Relation Theory: what was promised, in word and deed; where one stands, and revising; the effects left; an implicit commitment counts too, and is still avowal on my side and where I stand. "Each person's own commitment": even if a vow is said by the two together, where each one stands is still each one's own (Paper 1).
"We" and the household. "We" divides, as in Relation Theory, into two branches, doing things together and mutual recognition. In everyday speech it is sometimes only a way of putting what each of the two has done into one sentence; that sets up no "we," and is no third branch. Neither branch is a "we" set above the two people, making decisions for them. "The household" takes the everyday sense; whether a household can separately become a bearer is not judged (Paper 2; §7).
Meaning. Taken in Meaning Theory's sense: the relation, in cross-temporal carrying-forward, between a bearer and the content he avows; the attribution endpoints are closed in one person (Paper 2).
Non dubito. Two faces: not doubting that oneself is an end, not doubting that others are ends. Non dubito is not having no doubts, nor is it the same as trust (Paper 2).
Bringing someone into their own, support and constitution. Bringing someone into their own, as a verb, means letting the other grow into the other's own self; it does not name a result, is not used as a measure, and speaks of direction, not of what has already taken hold. Support is not substitute constitution; constitution is the step in which a person, by his own law, avows a content and makes it his own. The attribution of constitution, and the ownership of things, authorship, credit and responsibility, are several different matters (Paper 3).
Law and arrangement; change and revision; conflict. Law is the layer a person bears in the first person and by which he goes on organizing his action; arrangement is how time, roles and procedures are laid out, and division of labor lies at the layer of arrangement. Change is the rise and fall over the long years; revision is a person's changing, in the first person, one of his own laws, and keeping the books on it; change does not prove that revision has occurred. Conflict is taken in the Conflict Treatise's sense; many quarrels between husband and wife are only collisions (Paper 4).
Preparing for a child, someone who has not yet come, the child and descendants, doing something together, conditions. Preparing for a child takes only one sense: two people creating conditions together for someone who has not yet come. Someone who has not yet come is someone who has not yet come into these two people's lives, and does not necessarily not yet exist. The main text writes "the child"; "descendants" carries a family line, and is used only where traditions are interfaced. The thing the two do together is not called a shared purpose: the purposes are each one's own, and what is shared is only the one thing done. Conditions are what someone who comes later can enter, not a direction fixed for him (Paper 5).
Three persons, shared child-rearing and the lock. Three persons are three bearers, not one three-person subject; the child is a third one, not a third party formed out of the two. Shared child-rearing is read only on its side between husband and wife. In everyday speech one says "using the child as a lock"; Relation Theory uses the word "lock" narrowly: only sealing off exit itself is locking (Paper 6).
Exit and divorce; the exit right; knowing; able to leave. Exit is withdrawing one's own side; it is an act; divorce is the marriage's dissolution within the institution that endorsed it. The exit right has two components; when this series speaks of exit being sealed off, it means the basic component; the procedure of divorce belongs to the recognition component, and is only registered. Knowing has two senses; this series reads the sense of knowing that the other can leave. Able to leave means that the person himself can actually exit these dealings, not that the procedure has been completed or that he has moved out (Paper 7).
Slides, carries and violation; tendency; colonized. The direction of colonization is spoken of in several ways, divided as in Relation Theory: a characterization said aloud, fixing for the other what something means to him, slides in the direction of colonization; raising the cost of the other's exit outward while the way is still passable, or sealing the other's channels for saying no and changing his mind, or making them hard to travel, carries the direction of colonization; sealing off exit itself is, at the layer of basic rights, a violation, and also carries the direction of colonization; anything else that crosses basic rights is judged separately, at that layer, as a violation, and whether it carries the direction of colonization is read separately by that one effect.18 One sentence is one effect, and is read by that sentence; a person is not judged by one sentence, nor is a marriage. Tendency is a general way of speaking: it says where an arrangement is sliding, for instance division of labor sliding into a fixed requirement aimed at the other; when it lands on one effect, it is divided into sliding and carrying. A person's taking an arrangement, on his own, as unchangeable is his self-relation; structurally it has no outward direction, and is not in the tendency. A person's sealing himself in with a vow is read as locking, not called self-colonization; if what holds up that lock is an outside saying, the outside saying has occupied his own step of revision, and it is read as colonized; the entry between his own yesterday and today is recorded separately, and no separate name is given to it (Paper 1). A person's sealing himself in with a vow means the kind in which the vow, in running, makes exit actually unreachable (Paper 1, MA9); this is different from the "sealing" above, in the tier that carries the direction of colonization.
§5 Interfacing as a Whole
The papers each interfaced with figures by question. Paper 1 interfaced with Kant on mutual acquisition, Hegel on marriage as not a contract, Locke on the voluntary compact, Kierkegaard on the aesthetic validity of marriage, and Gilbert's joint commitment; Paper 2 with Hegel on the family, Montaigne, Nozick, Kant on love and respect, and Baier on trust; Paper 3 with Mill, Aristotle on friendship between husband and wife, Tan Sitong, and Kant on the perfection of others; Paper 4 with Cavell, Beauvoir, Aristotle on rule between husband and wife, and Ban Zhao; Paper 5 with "The Meaning of the Marriage Rite" in the Book of Rites and the Mencius, Kant and Arendt; Paper 6 with Aristotle, Hegel on children, and Locke; Paper 7 with Hume, Milton, Hegel on divorce, Lu Xun and the Zhuangzi. Several figures ask about the whole series, and are placed here.
Three goods (Augustine). At the opening of Of the Good of Marriage, Augustine says that each person is a part of the human race, that human nature is social, and that "the first natural bond of human society is man and wife."19 He goes on at once to say that the good of marriage is not only for the begetting of children, but also for the natural companionship itself between the two sexes; otherwise old couples, especially those who have lost their sons or never had children, could no longer be called married.20 He sums up the goods of marriage as three: offspring, faith, sacrament.21 The sacrament keeps the bond of marriage from coming undone through separation: the compact of marriage "is not done away by divorce intervening," and only when husband or wife dies is the bond loosed.22 He looks in order to explain by what marriage is a good. What he sees: there are several different things in marriage, each with its own place, which cannot be merged into one, nor stand in for one another.
He presses at indissolubility: he counts the indissoluble bond among the goods of marriage, while this series says that commitment cannot lock tomorrow and that a person can leave; the two collide here; yet that the bond is not loosed does not by itself determine that exit has been sealed off in running; on this layer, see the second point of parting below. At offspring he presses lightly: he puts offspring into his account of the goods of marriage, but does not on that account cancel marriages without children. They meet at two points. First, preparing for a child is not a condition of marriage's being marriage, and here he stands on the same side as this series; this series reads preparing for a child as content a marriage may have, not as a threshold (§1). Second, marriage is made up of several things that cannot stand in for one another, which has the same shape as Paper 1's three things; faith stands on the same side as commitment and exclusivity. They part at three points. First, his three are an account of the goods of marriage; this series' three are how the marriage it reads is made up: love, commitment, endorsement; the two tables do not ask the same question, can stand side by side, and are not to refute each other by adding or removing items one by one. Second, indissolubility: this series reads endorsement as making public to that institution and taking on its rules; an institution's not permitting dissolution is its rule, acknowledged but not judged; that a person can leave is a layer not given by that institution, and merely not having obtained dissolution within the institution does not by itself prove that exit has been sealed off (Paper 7, MA43). Third, this series does not prove that people ought to marry, nor does it rank marriage above or below not marrying.
Xian and Heng (the Book of Changes). The lower canon of the Book of Changes begins with Xian, and after Xian comes Heng. The Tuan commentary says: "Xian is gan, being stirred"; "Heng is jiu, lasting."23 The Xugua, the Sequence of the Hexagrams, runs from heaven and earth and the myriad things, through man and woman, down to husband and wife, and adds: "The way of husband and wife must not fail to last; therefore Heng follows."24 It looks in order to explain how the sequence of hexagrams comes about, and the order by which human relations are derived from heaven and earth. What it sees: being stirred and lasting are two things; a moment's mutual stirring and the lasting in time of the way of husband and wife are not one thing. It presses on this series: "must not fail to last" is a sentence of "must": the way of husband and wife must last; this series says that commitment cannot lock tomorrow, does not rank marriages by length, and issues no ought; by its lights, this series has lost half of the way of husband and wife. They meet in: the separation of being stirred and lasting corresponds exactly to the division of labor between the two series: Love Theory reads the cannot-not of that moment: this one, at this moment, irreplaceable; Marriage Theory reads the long years, one day after another. Lasting is not done once, either: marriage is the same promise made anew each day (Paper 1, MA4). They part at two points. First, this series does not say that the way of husband and wife must last; lasting is not a criterion, and Paper 4 does not prove that the longer, the better; lasting, here, is only the shape of being made anew each day by the person of today, not a locked state. Second, the Xugua derives from husband and wife the order of father and son, ruler and minister, superior and inferior; this series sets no order of human relations; what lies between parents and children belongs to Parent-Child Theory, and is not derived from marriage.
Husband and wife as the beginning of human relations (Li Zhi). In the Chutan ji, Li Zhi says: "Husband and wife are the beginning of humankind. Only with husband and wife are there father and son; only with father and son are there elder and younger brothers; only with brothers are there superior and inferior"; in "On Husband and Wife," in A Book to Burn, he says: "I have inquired into the beginning of things, and seen that husband and wife are where it starts," and "Taken to its limit, heaven and earth are one husband and wife."25 What he was opposing was the view that takes principle, or the Supreme Ultimate, as the beginning of the myriad things; he put husband and wife at the head of human relations.26 He looks in order to answer where the myriad things and human relations begin. What he sees: what begins is not one, but two; heaven and earth too are two. They meet in: the two people come first, and no "one" is first set up to govern the two; You are you, I am I, and only then is there an us (Paper 2), which runs the same way as the two in "heaven and earth are one husband and wife." This running-together has its limits: "two" does not by itself prove that neither end's own law is legislated for it by someone else; that layer Paper 2 argues separately. They part at: the before and after he speaks of is the order of occurrence and of ethics, where human relations begin; when this series says that Marriage Theory lies downstream of Relation Theory, it speaks of dependence in argument: Relation Theory establishes only what all relations have, and marriage is one kind among them. The two before-and-afters ask different things, and are not set against each other as source and branch; his order serves here only as a side light. Nor does this series derive father and son, or brothers, from husband and wife; parent and child are another branch; where heaven, earth and the myriad things begin, this series does not answer.
Minimizing marriage (Brake). In Minimizing Marriage, Brake argues that a politically liberal state should recognize caring relationships as valuable, and distribute equally the rights that support these relationships; her minimal marriage "would provide rights directly supporting relationships, but not economic benefits, without restriction as to sex or number of parties," and so extends not only to polyamorous relationships but also to asexual and aromantic people.27 She looks in order to answer what marriage law a liberal state may have. What she sees: that institution's recognition and the relationships it recognizes are two things; the rules of recognition can be legislated another way. She presses on this series at two points. First, her minimal marriage has no restriction on the number of parties; this series reads only two people, and so reads only one form of marriage. Second, her minimal marriage is also given to relationships without romantic love; this series says marriage must have love (Paper 1, MA3), which, by her lights, adds to marriage a condition it need not have. They meet in: endorsement counts by that institution's rules, and rules can differ (Paper 1, MA5); this series does not claim that other forms are not marriage either. They part at: what she answers is how the law ought to be, an ought in political philosophy; this series speaks only of relation, only registers the institutional side, acknowledges the rules without judging them, and does not argue how marriage law should be made. Two people, and love, are this series' conditions of scope; they say which kind of marriage it reads, not which kind that institution should recognize.
§6 The Directions of Colonization Read in the Papers, Said Once Together
Every paper read out the direction of colonization on its own item.
Paper 1: using endorsement to avow on the other's behalf, "We've got the certificate, so you're mine," slides in the direction of colonization; using a vow as a reason the other may not leave characterizes the other's exit, and slides in the direction of colonization; announcing consequences carries the direction of colonization; sealing off is a violation, and also carries the direction of colonization; using love to demand exclusivity falls back to the layer of purpose (14DD), taking my direction as her ruler. A person's sealing himself in with a vow is read as locking, not called colonization; if what holds up that lock is an outside saying, it is read as colonized; in both of these cases, that marriage is not in this series.
Paper 2: entering in the name of intimacy; in the name of "this household" or "for us," taking in and replacing one party's direction, which is a direction of colonization that borrows a construct against a person; using "We love each other, so you have to agree" to pass final judgment on a matter done together, which borrows mutual recognition as adjudication; handing one's own meaning over to the other for safekeeping, and then demanding it of the other.
Paper 3: fixing for the other what he should become; converting the conditions one has given into possession of the results of the other's constitution: "Everything you have today, I gave you." Two others are not here: writing bringing someone into their own as exchange is falling back; accommodation is not having stood, and structurally there is no direction of colonization toward the other; how things are on his own side cannot be seen from outside, and is not judged (MA21).
Paper 4: measuring the other as he is now by the other as he was then, and saying it aloud so as to fix for him who he is, slides in the direction of colonization; division of labor sliding into a fixed requirement aimed at the other has a tendency toward colonization: said aloud, it slides in the direction of colonization; making it unchangeable for the other carries the direction of colonization; a person's taking the division of labor, on his own, as unchangeable is his self-relation, and is not here; writing one's own giving as an account the other must repay is read by that one effect; hanging expectations on who the other is and what he cares about, and judging for the other, slides in the direction of colonization.
Paper 5: one party's acknowledging on the other's behalf, or saying aloud so as to fix the other's changing his mind as wronging oneself, slides in the direction of colonization; announcing consequences that can be carried out, sealing the other's paths for saying no and changing his mind, or making them hard to travel, carries the direction of colonization; what crosses basic rights is judged separately as a violation. The child's falling, within the two people's arrangements, to "only as" a condition, of continuing the line, of carrying on to later generations, of support in old age or of keeping the other, is treating the child only as a condition, and carries the direction of colonization; one sentence is read by that sentence itself, and no one sentence is grounds to judge that the child is only a condition.
Paper 6: "for the child's sake" legislating for the two people; using the child as a lock to keep the other, when, within the two people's arrangements, it falls to "only as," is treating the child only as a condition, and carries the direction of colonization; a sentence like "If you leave, you can forget about ever seeing the child again" is read by that sentence itself: it announces a consequence, and carries the direction of colonization.
Paper 7: raising the cost of the other's exit outward carries the direction of colonization; where a person no longer stands where he promised, and lets the semblance of love hold up the other's arrangements in his place, this is read as the structure of dropping, and this is the leaving person's reading of himself; saying on leaving, for the other, "Nothing has been lost these years," slides in the direction of colonization.
Taken together, what these directions borrow are things that are, or may come to be, in a marriage: endorsement, vows, "we," the household, division of labor, giving, children, the arrangements of the long years; some of these are not in every marriage, and are not on that account components of marriage either. These things carry no direction in themselves. One and the same certificate can be only a making public to that institution; one and the same vow can be only where the one who speaks it stands today; one and the same child is another end. The direction is read on the one effect in which they are taken up to do something; whether it took hold is seen in how the other afterward understands and acts.
Not heading toward colonization in a relation is not easy to begin with; in marriage many things are bound together, endorsement, vows, the household, and the division of labor and children there may be, and each one is a place that can be taken up to do something else, to slide in the direction of colonization. So relations are all mixed: mixing is the normal state, and staying always at 15DD is only an ideal type;28 the ideal type does not prove that the kind of mutual non dubito that holds at any time and in any place does not exist; that kind this series does not take up (§2). What this series reads is direction; a single sliding is read on that one occasion, and it is not on that account judged that a marriage has exited scope; exit from scope is read by Paper 1, MA9. This series does not on this account say that marriage is dangerous, nor does it on this account urge people to marry or not to marry; it only reads.
§7 Remainders
Several things this series registers, and does not settle.
First, whether "the household" can separately be established as a bearer. Meaning Theory leaves this undecided (Meaning Theory P3, Y27); this series establishes only that a little circle of two does not form a third bearer, and that "we" and "the household" neither take in nor replace each one's meaning; whether the household itself can separately be established is not judged (Paper 2, Paper 5, Paper 6).
Second, the kind in which two people are in mutual non dubito at any time and in any place: not taken up; only registered, and it is not proved that it does not exist (§2).
Third, a child one party brings into the marriage. When one party already has a child at remarriage, the child comes into the other's life without the two having prepared for him together; on the side between husband and wife, the items of Paper 6 can largely be read as they stand, but the starting point between the two and the child differs; what each has acknowledged, and from when, this series has not read.
Fourth, how one party's self-relation and the dealings between the two are entangled. A person has, for years, spoken to the other by a sentence that came from outside; is that sentence, at this moment, his own, or is an outside saying running through his mouth? This question lies between his own yesterday and today; Paper 4 reads only the stretch between the two.
Fifth, how sparse the moments of love in a marriage can become before this series no longer reads it. Love is read by moments and seen from the subject's side, and the moments cannot be counted from outside; Paper 7 gives no line, and cannot give one.
Sixth, what it means for the two adults that a child cannot choose its first conditions. Paper 5 reads only which direction the conditions go in, and issues no ought; the child's side belongs to Parent-Child Theory.
Seventh, Gilbert's joint commitment. Paper 1 picks up her account at the layer of marriage, and answers by where each one stands, by the effects already left, and by endorsement's public procedure. After interfacing with her, Relation Theory wrote: "this shows what it keeps, and does not amount to having already explained all of Gilbert's normative features".29 This restriction comes along to the layer of marriage, and this series has not made it good.
§8 The Propositions of the Whole Series
The propositions of the papers are listed together in the very words of each paper's propositions, with only a full stop added at the end; argument and qualification are in each paper.
Paper 1, Joined
MA1 The marriage this series reads has as its premise that both parties are headed in the 15DD direction. Under this premise, marriage is made up of three things: love; each person's own commitment; institutional endorsement. The three each do their own work and cannot stand in for one another: the love between the two is something the marriage this series reads cannot do without; if it is entirely gone, that marriage exits this series' scope; it is also where exclusivity comes from; commitment is what each person promised, in word and deed, and where he stands; it binds by where one stands and by the effects already left, and breaking it is entered on the books; endorsement makes this union public to an institution, obtains recognition-based rights in return, and takes on that institution's rules. The three are also read differently: love is seen from the subject's side; commitment is seen from outside, by words and deeds and the structure they leave; endorsement is seen by that institution's rules. Registration and vows can be in the same ceremony, and are entered apart: registration is making public to an institution, and is not read as the words and deeds of commitment.
MA2 The 15DD direction is a direction, not a state. People are all mixed; a layer records one operation, and falling back is read as it occurs. What the object layer reads is marriage in which both parties are headed in this direction; at the operation layer each party confirms only his own end, and does not judge at which layer the other is; the other end appears as the other party's first-person avowal and where he stands, and I do not certify it; if it is later confirmed that the object did not obtain, this series exits this case, and does not turn and judge the other end. From outside, the love, avowal and layer of either end are not certified, and the whole marriage is not characterized on this basis; of structural conditions that can already be checked, one can still say whether this series' premise holds there, without turning to judge the inner life of either end.
MA3 Marriage must have love, and what it must have is the love between the two: where the love between the two is entirely gone, whether the two still need this marriage or keep it up only by their own commitments, it is no longer the marriage this series reads; this series looks at structure, does not read minds, and does not criticize. Where both love the child and there is no love between them, it is not among the marriages this series reads either; love for the child cannot stand in for the love between the two. How love works within marriage is read by Love Theory.
MA4 Marriage is not one promise; it is the same promise made anew each day: whoever stands there on any given day is the person of today. Commitment cannot lock tomorrow; it binds by where one stands and by the effects already left; it is not read as a commitment lapsing every day and being made over every day.
MA5 Institutional endorsement is the two parties' making this marriage public to an institution, recognizing the institution's power, and obtaining recognition-based rights in return. Where that institution's rules are met, it counts; where they are not, that institution has not endorsed. The rules themselves are acknowledged but not judged; this side is only registered, not argued. Whether the endorsement counts goes by that institution's rules; whether that marriage is in this series is another matter. Nor does the existence of a registered endorsement endorse the legitimacy of its rules.
MA6 Endorsement cannot stand in for a person's own commitment, nor for love. To use endorsement to avow on the other's behalf, for instance "We've got the certificate, so you're mine," slides in the direction of colonization.
MA7 Endorsement gives commitment and exit alike a public side; it can also be one of the conditions created for someone who has not yet come.
MA8 The exclusivity of marriage comes from love: love in the 15DD direction is exclusive to begin with. Commitment acknowledges it and says it out loud; the binding of commitment is seen from outside by acts and structure: what was promised, in word and deed; whether later words and deeds crossed the line of what was promised; and the arrangements already left with the other party. A passing stirring of the heart is a matter in one's heart and is not judged; it does not break the commitment, and carries no direction of colonization; whether he still stands there is a matter at his end. Endorsement makes it public. The exclusivity of both is two one-way exclusivities meeting; it is not obtained by exchange, nor generated by agreement. Exclusivity applies to love, not to recognition; pushing exclusivity up to the layer of recognition is preferential love.
MA9 Three kinds of marriage are not in this series, and each is read differently. A purely transactional marriage, in which both parties treat the other only as a means: this is an ideal type; from outside only clues can be seen; it is said only conditionally. A marriage kept up without love between the two: love is seen from the subject's side and cannot be read from outside; it too is said only conditionally; this series does not criticize. A marriage whose exit has been sealed off is not in this series, whether it was sealed off by a construct or by the other party, or the person sealed himself in with a vow. What is sealed off by a construct or by the other party structurally reduces a person to a means: structure is looked at; the structure settled between the two is read, not that institution's rules; whether the person himself at this point still stands where he promised is entered separately. Where the person seals himself in with a vow, this seals off, in running, his own possibility of changing, while in qualification the position is still his: it is counted only where it really makes exit actually unreachable; it is a first-person matter, and is said only conditionally; it is read as locking, not called self-colonization; if what holds up that lock is an outside saying, it is read as colonized. Where the latter two arise after marriage, that marriage exits scope from then on, and this is not traced back; what exits scope is this case; this series turns and judges neither the two people's own direction and love, nor the time before.
Paper 2, Each Their Own
MA10 You are you, I am I, and only then is there an us. When "we" is said in marriage, it divides into two branches: doing things together, and mutual recognition; which branch occurs is checked case by case. Neither branch comes before the two, nor stands above them; neither legislates, nor passes final judgment on either party's own law; the binding force of rules the two have agreed on passes separately through each one's own law, or comes from a procedure both have already acknowledged. Each person's commitment is still entered separately, by each one's avowal, where each stands and the effects already left; it does not form a third branch of "we": in something done together, it is the share each has avowed, and when it is present together with mutual recognition, it is still not borne by "we" on either party's behalf.
MA11 The attribution of meaning lies with each person; the outlet of a direction can lie outside oneself. The directions of two people can cross in one and the same matter done together, while each relation remains anchored in its own bearer, and they do not merge into one; "we" and "the household" do not take in, nor replace, each person's meaning. Whether "the household" can come to stand separately as a bearer is not judged.
MA12 Recognizing the other as an end too: the other has his own cannot-not, which I only recognize as there, and whose content I cannot read out; I do not make for the other the decisions he can make himself; feelings the other voices I can fail to understand, and I do not deny that he really has them.
MA13 Even the most intimate marriage has places that cannot be entered: the other's internality, solitude, external relationships and past are the other's own.
MA14 Non dubito in marriage has both sides: not doubting that oneself is an end, and not doubting that the other is an end. Both sides are choices each person makes anew, time after time, not a state a marriage arrives at; from outside only words and deeds and structure are read, and minds are not read.
MA15 The directions of colonization read from this item: entering in the name of intimacy; judging one party's law for her in the name of "this household" or "for our sake," that is, using "we" or "the household" to take in and replace one party's direction, which is a direction of colonization that borrows a construct against a person; marriage, like other institutions, cannot produce a "we" that gathers each person into one; passing final judgment on something done together on the ground that "We love each other, so you have to agree," which borrows mutual recognition as adjudication; which branch "For the sake of this household, you have to ..." actually borrows is checked by its use on that occasion, not assigned by its sentence form; handing one's own meaning to the other for safekeeping, and then demanding it of the other.
Paper 3, Into One's Own
MA16 To bring the other into his own is to let the other grow into the other's own self. Bringing someone into their own is cultivation, and is a direction; whether it took hold lies at the other's end. To declare on the other's behalf, on the sole basis of my judgment of success, that his constitution has been completed is no longer bringing him into his own.
MA17 I bring you into your own without waiting for you to bring me into mine first. Your direction is yours; I can only make space for it; it is completed at your end, and is not mine to settle. Only when two such one-ways meet is it mutual, and it is not obtained by exchange; if they do not meet, each one's share is still there as before; mutuality is not a state a marriage is meant to reach.
MA18 Bringing someone into their own takes two main ways: creating conditions, and questioning. Questioning leaves the question to the other, and does not draw the conclusion on the other's behalf; to draw the conclusion on the other's behalf is to take my direction as the other's ruler.
MA19 Mutuality requires neither simultaneity nor equality, and keeps no accounts: bringing each other into their own is not entered as an account of exchange awaiting the other's repayment; commitments, contributions and the effects already left are entered as before. Division of labor and cooperation is not exchange, because it is not a mutual requirement. Complementarity is not a problem; demanding of each other that the other be the same as oneself is taking my direction as the other's ruler.
MA20 What the other has gained from me, once avowed in his own law, is his in the attribution of constitution, and does not become a constitution I completed on his behalf; shared property, contribution, credit and responsibility each have their own accounts, and are not settled by this proposition. Within the boundary of not infringing the positions of other subjects, the other may go in directions I did not foresee or do not approve of, and may even go in a direction in which he no longer needs me; this sentence is in the mode of ability, not a statement of fact. Bringing each other into their own has a mutual shape, and does not certify 16DD.
MA21 The direction of colonization read from this matter: fixing for the other what he ought to become; converting the conditions provided into ownership of the other's first-person constitutive results, as in "Everything you have today, I gave you"; the real contribution is entered as before, and what this sentence occupies is the other's step of becoming himself. To write bringing someone into their own as exchange is falling back. To hand over one's own share is accommodation, not bringing someone into their own: it is not having stood, and structurally carries no direction of colonization toward the other; how things are on his own side cannot be seen from outside, and is not judged. Any further pressure applied outward is entered separately, by that one effect; accommodation is not determined from years of giving way.
Paper 4, The Years
MA22 Growth over the long term: each person's yesterday, today and tomorrow land in one and the same stretch of dealings; people change, and after they change, the two choose again together. Choosing again together takes two shapes: neither law changes and a new arrangement is formed, or one party, or both, separately revise, and the two then confirm together that the new way of doing things fits.
MA23 To measure the other as he is now by the other as he was then, and to say it out loud, fixing for the other who he is, slides in the direction of colonization.
MA24 Division of labor is a present arrangement the two have acknowledged together; it can be avowed anew, and it can be changed; its binding force passes separately through each party's own law. Where division of labor slides into a fixed requirement aimed at the other, by being treated as something the other may not change, by being hung on who the other is, or by being swapped out within habit, there is a tendency toward colonization: saying it out loud and characterizing the division of labor slides in the direction of colonization; making it unchangeable for the other in running carries the direction of colonization. One party's own treating the division of labor as unchangeable is his self-relation; structurally it has no outward direction, and it is not within this tendency.
MA25 A moment of exchange is falling back; it is common, and is sometimes words said in anger. The whole marriage is not characterized on the strength of this one occasion; if on this occasion one has already said out loud something that writes one's own giving as an account the other must repay, the direction is read by the effect of this one occasion; whether it has since become fixed into a continuing requirement is read separately, as sediment.
MA26 Expression is read separately by three grounds: a requirement that holds in one's own law; a role requirement explicitly arranged by both parties; only an expectation of the relation; expectation alone does not establish duty or accountability in reverse. To hang an expectation on who the other is, or on what he cares about, and on that basis to judge for the other, slides in the direction of colonization.
MA27 Conflict can become an avenue of chiseling in a relation, and this possibility is read together with its cost. After conflict has occurred again and again, stopping points can have become routine, and stalling too can have become the normal state; a long absence of conflict is not evidence of cultivation. What admits of diagnosis is this operation on this occasion, not this person; consensus does not ratify the past. Whether, after a violation, one can come back, acknowledge and repair is read with two ledgers in parallel.
Paper 5, For One Not Yet Here
MA28 Preparing for a child is two people creating conditions together for someone who has not yet come; it is the shape cultivation takes in the one kind that is creating conditions, and this paper reads only this kind. Questioning, and the one who comes later's own response, are entered separately where there are already actual dealings; the beginning of living together is not taken as the only dividing line.
MA29 When preparing for a child becomes a C that the two each avow and cannot not do, it is read as doing something together: you for A, I for B, and we do C together. C is the undertaking of creating conditions together for someone who has not yet come; it is not the child, nor is it simply either party's A; A and B are each one's own, and neither examines the other. One party's B can be just this: affirming the other's purpose of wanting a child, and being willing to give and to support for it; this too is his own cannot-not; whether a given person's B is this kind only his own end can confirm.
MA30 C must be avowed by both, each having a share he can do himself, and the shares put together able to bring it about; neither party holds its purpose and adjudication alone. What holding alone looks like in structure is one party's A borrowing the other's hands, how this undertaking is done being for one party alone to decide, and the other party's way to take part in deciding, to adjust and to withdraw not being there; then it is not the C spoken of here. If one party is willing to do things according to the other's arrangement, it does not count as holding alone, so long as his way to take part, adjust and withdraw is there. If one party does not avow it, there is no C. One party avowing on the other's behalf, or saying out loud a characterization of the other's changing his mind, slides in the direction of colonization; sealing the other's way to say no and to change his mind, or making it hard to travel, carries the direction of colonization; what crosses basic rights is judged separately as violation. Whether preparation occurred, what conditions it actually left, and whether that person later came are entered apart: that he did not come does not retroactively judge that the earlier preparation never occurred, nor is either party, on this basis, judged to be lacking in something; not having welcomed a child is not automatically the same as that position standing empty.
MA31 The new subject is an end too. The child is another end that preparing for a child welcomes, not a product of this undertaking; what the two leave for him are conditions, and they do not complete the avowal of his direction for him. The child's standing as an end is not created by this undertaking of preparation; nor does his own constitutive position pass to the two because he cannot choose which conditions he first enters. Whether the conditions still count as support is checked separately by the negative boundaries of support: the two people's conditions, judgments or arrangements are not passed off as his constitution; his channels of refusal, revision, exit and change of direction afterward are not sealed; and the conditions are kept for him to be able to unfold without revolving around either of the two. In the years when he cannot yet refuse or revise, what is protected is his existing standing as an end, that the source of his value is not placed outside him, and the openness of the conditions of first-person running; the meaning predicates on the two people's side are not copied onto him. He does not figure only as the continuation of the two, a link in continuing the line, a security for old age, or a condition for keeping the other party; "only as" is read from the two people's arrangements, and a sentence is read by that sentence itself; to fall to "only as" is to treat the child only as a condition, and carries the direction of colonization; the child's side is handed to Parent-Child Theory.
MA32 Preparing to adopt counts too: someone who has not yet come is someone who has not yet come into these two people's lives, not necessarily someone who does not yet exist.
MA33 The two people's looking-toward crosses on one and the same someone who has not yet come; each belongs to each, and they are not merged into one meaning of the household.
Paper 6, Three
MA34 After a third one has come, Marriage Theory reads only what lies between husband and wife: the side of shared child-rearing between husband and wife. What lies between the child and the parents is handed to Parent-Child Theory; where three or more are involved, dealings are entered on separate accounts, pair by pair.
MA35 The child is able to unfold without revolving around me, and also able to unfold without revolving around her: the test is read person by person. This is a test, not that the child must in fact leave; being able is limited to constitutive independence, not real-world self-sufficiency.
MA36 "For the child's sake" cannot legislate for the two people; taking the child as a lock to keep the other party, where it falls to "only as," is treating the child only as a condition, and carries the direction of colonization. "For the child's sake" and "for the sake of this household," when used to judge one party's law for her, have the same form; whether it appeals to something done together, to existing arrangements, or borrows mutual recognition to pass final judgment, is checked separately, case by case.
MA37 The share each person has done in shared child-rearing cannot be acknowledged by someone else in his place; shared child-rearing is not settled by unilateral exit.
MA38 After adoption has welcomed a third one, the side of shared child-rearing between husband and wife is read by this paper; the preparation the two make together for his coming is read by Paper 5.
Paper 7, Staying and Leaving
MA39 This paper reads only how a marriage that carries the 15DD direction ends: one party's or both parties' love ends; the commitment of marriage is broken; divorce; bereavement of a spouse. The kind of marriage that is kept up after the ending is not read.
MA40 Where one party's love is gone and he still stands on the commitment, he is read by the commitment and not judged to be a means; that marriage already lacks one party's love, and from then on this series exits this case; this is not traced back, and this series does not turn and judge that party. Whether love has ended is the affair of the one who loves. For how the two go on from there, this proposition lays out no road.
MA41 Where a person no longer stands where he promised, and lets the semblance of love hold up the other party's arrangements in his place, this is read as the structure of dropping; this is the leaver's reading of himself: what is looked at is the declaration and the structural effect of that promise on the other party, and he does not excuse himself by whether he owned the change in his heart; dropping is not reported from outside. Breaking the commitment of marriage is entered apart: dropping, falsity, non-fulfillment, obstruction, joint revision of the agreement; the direction of colonization falls only on dropping and falsity, and from outside only non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement are reported, together with traces. Breaking it does not first establish that love has moved away, nor, merely because a new love or an affair outside marriage has appeared, conclude backward that the old love has ended. Leaving must be entered on the books, and there must also be an exit declaration the other party can clearly understand; entering on the books, the declaration and the effects already left are entered apart, and the declaration is not conditional on the other party's agreeing to the exit.
MA42 The qualification to exit cannot be locked, and only the basic component of the exit right is read; whether exit is within reach in running is checked separately, and what has been sealed off is not in this series. Whether one party's staying has grounds in his own law is read party by party; only his end can confirm it, and it is not divided by who knows what. Where exit is within reach, all that is taken away is the lock; cost, stalling and habit that has been surreptitiously swapped may still be what his staying rests on. Where one knows that the other party can leave, and leaving is also a practically available option, staying is no longer fixed solely by there being no way out; this still does not prove the grounds of this staying. The freedom to exit is read on the side of not doubting that oneself is an end: what is asked is whether the relation has left conditions of running for one's own staying and leaving and for choosing again; it is not inferred from the channels' being sealed that the person no longer recognizes himself as an end, nor certified from the channels' being within reach that he has avowed staying or trust. For a person who cannot exit, his position is not taken away from outside; what sealing off takes away is this side's room in running. The side of the other's also being an end is read for each, and is not cancelled automatically because exit has been obstructed. From outside only checkable words and deeds, conditions and clues are read, and non dubito is not certified on that basis.
MA43 The exit declaration lets the other party clearly understand that the person is exiting, and is at the layer of the relation; the dissolution of the marriage within the endorsing institution, with its public procedure, belongs to the recognition component of the exit right, and is registered by that institution's rules. Whether the two steps are completed at the same time is entered apart. Merely not having obtained dissolution within the institution does not by itself prove that the basic component of the exit right has been sealed off; nor does moving out of the shared home by itself prove that exit is already within reach. "Able to leave" means that the person himself can actually exit these dealings, withdraw his own side, and is checked by Relation Theory. A construct's power raising the cost of exit is acknowledged but not judged; raised until a person actually cannot leave, it is sealing off. One party's using a construct to bear down on the other is read as between person and person: raising the other party's cost of exit outward carries the direction of colonization; sealing off the other party's exit itself is, at the layer of basic rights, a violation besides, and that marriage too exits this series.
MA44 Exit does not settle the accounts: shared child-rearing and shared matters are not settled by unilateral exit; saying for the other party, on leaving, "Nothing was lost in all these years" slides in the direction of colonization.
MA45 Bereavement of a spouse: how things stand on the endorsement side goes by that institution's rules, acknowledged but not judged; love is seen from the subject's side, and death is not the same as the ending of love; whether there is another side after death is not judged.
§9 Drawing Together
This paper lays down no propositions, and proves no proposition at the object layer. What it says is this: Marriage Theory lies downstream on the relational side, following Love Theory, and reads, in the marriage of two people, the part that holds only in marriage; its scope is marriage in which both people are headed in the direction of recognizing the other as an end too, and it does not claim that other forms are not marriage; the direction is the premise, and marriage is made up of love, each person's own commitment and institutional endorsement; the main line is You are you, I am I, and only then is there an us; the two each look beyond themselves, toward the other, toward someone who has not yet come; what strings the seven papers together is the same promise made anew each day. The directions of colonization read in the papers borrow things that are, or may come to be, in a marriage; the direction is read on the one effect in which they are taken up to do something; people are all mixed, and a single sliding is read on that one occasion.
Appendix: Pieces Handed Down from Upstream
Relation Theory's passage for Marriage Theory reads: "Marriage Theory: F6 §3.1(f), the three grounds of expression; F6 Appendix D, SAE Marriage Principles (a working demonstration, not evidentiary); the Conflict Treatise's two people who live together, §8's three-way sort, and §24. What Relation Theory gives first: commitment; the four cells of stability, read party by party; expectation; what conflict sediments into after it recurs again and again; the two branches of 'we'. The institutional part of marriage belongs to the institutional side; it is between person and construct."30 Love Theory, in its Paper 0, hands over the boundary of marriage: "The part in which there are both commitment and institutional protection, and in which the institutional protection is not only the law, belongs to Marriage Theory"; "An affair outside marriage is read in two parts: the love between the two people is in Love Theory; the breaking of the commitment of marriage is in Marriage Theory."31 Each piece is placed as follows. This table is for readers who want to check against upstream; to read this series itself, it can be skipped.
| Piece | Source | Placed in Marriage Theory |
|---|---|---|
| F6 §3.1(f), the three grounds of expression | Relation Theory Paper 0, §16 | Paper 4, MA26 |
| F6 Appendix D, SAE Marriage Principles (a working demonstration, not evidentiary) | Same | The papers argue for the principles it contains, with specific rules as examples: Paper 1 (item 8(e)); Paper 2 (items 0, 1, 2); Paper 3 (items 4, 5, 6; item 8(c)); Paper 4 (items 3, 5, 6; item 8(a)(b)); Paper 6 (item 8(d)); Paper 7 (item 7) |
| The Conflict Treatise's two people who live together | Same | Paper 4, only as an example of shared life; Paper 2 |
| Conflict Treatise §8, the three-way sort | Same | Paper 4 |
| Conflict Treatise §24 | Same | Paper 2, MA10; Paper 4; Paper 6 |
| Commitment | Same (Relation Theory Paper 3) | Paper 1, MA4; Paper 7 |
| The four cells of stability, read party by party | Same (H30 to H32) | Paper 7, MA42 |
| Expectation | Same (H10, H33 to H37) | Paper 4, MA26 |
| What conflict sediments into after it recurs again and again | Same (H48) | Paper 4, MA27 |
| The two branches of "we" | Same; Relation Theory Paper 0, §7 | Paper 2, MA10; Paper 5; Paper 6, MA36 |
| The institutional part of marriage, between person and construct | Same | Paper 1, MA5, only registered |
| 16DD that holds at any time and in any place | Relation Theory Paper 0, §16 (handed downstream to be argued) | Not taken up (§2) |
| The boundary of marriage: both commitment and institutional protection | Love Theory Paper 0, §2, §7 | Read as the premise and the three things, Paper 1, MA1; the threshold, see §1; the check on shared words, see §4 |
| Breaking the commitment of marriage | Love Theory Paper 0, §2 | Paper 7, MA41 |
| Love after marriage | Love Theory Paper 0, §2, §7 | Read by Love Theory; Paper 1, MA3 |
| Love gone while the actions of love go on being given | Love Theory Paper 0, §10, remainder five | Paper 7, MA41, taking up the side of marriage |
When pointing back, the restrictions of that place come along.
Acknowledgments
This paper is signed by Han Qin alone; the author decided every argument and choice and bears sole responsibility for the text. Models from Anthropic and OpenAI assisted with drafting and review; the author thanks them. The English edition is an independent rewrite of the Chinese text, not a translation; where the two differ, the Chinese governs.
Notes
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §16: "Once Relation Theory is written, Love Theory, Marriage Theory, Parent-Child Theory and Cooperation Theory are to be unfolded. Friendship is not given a series of its own but serves as a running example (Paper 3)." In the quotation, "Paper 3" is Relation Theory Paper 3. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §16: "Relation Theory in the abstract establishes only what all relations have; a proposition that holds only in one kind of relation is handed to the series on that kind of relation to argue." ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 0, §7. Xixiang ji [The Story of the Western Wing], Book Five, Act Four, the aria to the tune Qingjiang yin 清江引: 愿普天下有情的都成了眷属 (English rendering as in Love Theory Paper 0). ↩︎
- F6 §3.1(g). ↩︎
- Meaning Theory P3, The Half That Is Not Mine to Settle. ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 0, §2, the table, the row for recognizing her as an end too (15DD); for the marking of layers, Love Theory Paper 0, note 3, follows the Revision Notes of From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito, which splits "10D into 15DD law of unilateral non dubito + 16DD law of bilateral non dubito". ↩︎
- Relation Theory H61 is written as a conditional; Meaning Theory P3, Introduction: "For a bearer that has avowed, in the first person, the other-directed content in question, this paper writes the outward form of this relation." ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §16: "whether and how 16DD that can hold at any time and in any place appears in a given kind of relation, which that branch argues for itself". ↩︎
- F6, Appendix D, SAE Marriage Principles, item 0: "You are you, I am I, and only then is there an us." ↩︎
- Meaning Theory Paper 0. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 7, citing Meaning Theory Y10: "from the closure of the attribution endpoints in one person, it does not follow that he is 'self-contained, self-sufficient, in no need of an outside'". ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §16: "a working demonstration, not evidentiary". ↩︎
- Relation Theory H11: "the relation between persons and constructs is not; the provisions themselves are acknowledged but not judged". ↩︎
- Relation Theory H8, H9. ↩︎
- F6 §1.3. ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 0, §2, the table, the row for purpose (14DD). ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 0, §5. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26; Relation Theory H37. Relation Theory's paper on commitment is Relation Theory Paper 3, Commitment. ↩︎
- Of the Good of Marriage §1. English translation: "the first natural bond of human society is man and wife". ↩︎
- Same work, §3. English translation: "not merely on account of the begetting of children, but also on account of the natural society itself in a difference of sex"; "Otherwise it would not any longer be called marriage in the case of old persons, especially if either they had lost sons, or had given birth to none". ↩︎
- Same work, §32. English translation: "All these are goods, on account of which marriage is a good; offspring, faith, sacrament". ↩︎
- Same work, §7: "the compact of marriage is not done away by divorce intervening"; §32: "is the marriage bond loosed, save by the death of the husband or wife". ↩︎
- Zhouyi [Book of Changes], the Tuan commentaries on the hexagrams Xian and Heng: 咸，感也; 恒，久也 (English renderings this paper's own). The Xian line is checked against the Chinese Text Project transcription; the Heng line is cross-checked between the Korean Wikisource transcription of the lower canon of the Zhouyi and the yellowbridge.com transcription. ↩︎
- Zhouyi, Xugua [Sequence of the Hexagrams], item 31: 夫妇之道不可以不久也，故受之以恒 (English rendering this paper's own); checked against the Chinese Text Project transcription; not checked against a standard annotated edition. ↩︎
- Both passages as quoted in Zhang Zailin, "Li Zhi as a 'Sage of Qing'" (Journal of Xi'an Jiaotong University (Social Sciences), 2009, no. 2; reprinted on aisixiang.com). The first is from the Chutan ji, in Li Zhi wenji, vol. 5, p. 1: 夫妇，人之始也。有夫妇然后有父子，有父子然后有兄弟，有兄弟然后有上下; the latter two sentences are from "On Husband and Wife," in Fenshu [A Book to Burn] (Zhonghua shuju, 1975), pp. 90–91: 吾究物始，而见夫妇之为造端也; 极而言之，天地一夫妇也 (English renderings this paper's own). The original books have not been checked. ↩︎
- The same article's summary: Li Zhi 把男女两性的交往名正言顺地尊为人伦之始的『首伦』, rightfully honoring the association between the two sexes as the "first relation," the beginning of human relations (English rendering this paper's own). Zhang Yanhong, "Li Zhi's Political Thought as Seen in A Book to Burn and A Sequel to A Book to Burn" (Study Times, January 29, 2024), also says that "On Husband and Wife" thereby rejects the view that takes "principle" or the "Supreme Ultimate" as the source of the myriad things. ↩︎
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Marriage and Domestic Partnership" (by Brake), §4.4: "would provide rights directly supporting relationships, but not economic benefits, without restriction as to sex or number of parties"; "would extend marriage not only to polyamorists, but to asexuals and aromantics"; in the same section, caring relationships "should be recognized as valuable by the politically liberal state". ↩︎
- Moral Law P6 §1: "mixed reality is the normal state, pure 15DD community is only an ideal type", as quoted in Love Theory Paper 1, note 10, and in Relation Theory Paper 4. The original sentence speaks of the forms of community, and Love Theory Paper 1 has already made this transfer; carrying it to two people in a marriage is an extension, this series' own undertaking. The ideal type does not prove that the kind of mutual non dubito that holds at any time and in any place does not exist; that kind this series does not take up. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §7. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §16. ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 0, §2. ↩︎
References
All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version; the DOIs of the papers of Marriage Theory are added on publication. Quotations are checked item by item in the accompanying audit table.
I · This series
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Marriage Theory Paper 1: Joined [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23819212 Qin, H. (2026). SAE Marriage Theory Paper 2: Each Their Own [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23819224 Qin, H. (2026). SAE Marriage Theory Paper 3: Into One's Own [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23819232 Qin, H. (2026). SAE Marriage Theory Paper 4: The Years [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23819238 Qin, H. (2026). SAE Marriage Theory Paper 5: For One Not Yet Here [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23819245 Qin, H. (2026). SAE Marriage Theory Paper 6: Three [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23819255 Qin, H. (2026). SAE Marriage Theory Paper 7: Staying and Leaving [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23819263 II · SAE works directly cited in this paper
Qin, H. (2026). How Is Institution Possible: From Inter-Ontological Remainder to Co-Constructive Framework (SAE Foundational Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19328662
Qin, H. (2026). The Jurisdiction of the Question of Meaning (SAE Meaning Theory, Paper 0) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22802041
Qin, H. (2026). The Half That Is Not Mine to Settle (SAE Meaning Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22731235
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 0: The Place of Relation Theory [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545115
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 1: What a Relation Is, and What It Is Not [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545047
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 3: Commitment [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545023
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 4: Dealings and Expectation [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545057
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 7: Why Still Relate [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545097
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 0: The Place of Love Theory [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627790
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 1: At First Sight [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627762
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 6: That Moment [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627781
III · External works
Classical texts are given in simplified characters.
Augustine. De bono coniugali (c. 401). (English "Of the Good of Marriage," from the New Advent Church Fathers transcription, which names no translator; the Latin original has not been checked)
Zhouyi 周易, the Tuan commentaries on Xian 咸 and Heng 恒. (Xian from the Chinese Text Project transcription; Heng cross-checked between the Korean Wikisource transcription of the lower canon of the Zhouyi and the yellowbridge.com transcription; not checked against a standard annotated edition)
Zhouyi 周易, Xugua 序卦. (Chinese Text Project transcription; not checked against a standard annotated edition)
Li Zhi 李贽. Chutan ji 初潭集; Fenshu 焚书 [A Book to Burn], juan 3, "Fufu lun" 夫妇论 [On Husband and Wife]. (as quoted by Zhang Zailin; the original books have not been checked)
Brake, Elizabeth. Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. (cited here from the SEP account in "Marriage and Domestic Partnership" §4.4; the book has not been checked)
Wang Shifu 王实甫. Xixiang ji 西厢记 [The Story of the Western Wing], Book Five, Act Four. (as checked in Love Theory Paper 0)
IV · Secondary literature
Brake, E. "Marriage and Domestic Partnership". In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Zhang Zailin 张再林. (2009). 作为「情圣」的李贽 [Li Zhi as a "Sage of Qing"]. Xi'an Jiaotong daxue xuebao (shehui kexue ban) [Journal of Xi'an Jiaotong University (Social Sciences)], 2009(2). (reprinted on aisixiang.com)
Zhang Yanhong 张燕红. (2024, January 29). 从《焚书》《续焚书》看李贽的政治思想 [Li Zhi's Political Thought as Seen in A Book to Burn and A Sequel to A Book to Burn]. Xuexi shibao [Study Times]. (reprinted on chinawriter.com.cn)
Interfaces
- Main upstream: Relation Theory Paper 0 (§7, §16); Love Theory Paper 0 (§2, §5, §7, §10); Meaning Theory P3.
- Also used: Relation Theory Paper 1 (H8, H9, H11), Paper 3 (the section under H26), Paper 4 (H37), Paper 7 (H61; the section under H62, citing Meaning Theory Y10); Meaning Theory Paper 0; F6 (§1.3, §3.1(g), Appendix D item 0); Love Theory Paper 1 (note 10) and Paper 6; Moral Law P6 §1 (by way of Love Theory Paper 1, note 10, and Relation Theory Paper 4); the Revision Notes of From Self-Awareness to Non Dubito (by way of Love Theory Paper 0, note 3).
- This series: Papers 1 to 7; this paper lists together the propositions of the whole series (§8), the shared words (§4), the directions of colonization said together (§6) and the remainders (§7).