Joined
眷属
This paper reads what this series means by marriage. This series 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 a premise, not a component of marriage. It is a direction, not a state: people are all mixed, 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.
Under this premise, marriage is made up of three things: love; each person's own commitment; institutional endorsement. The three do different work, cannot stand in for one another, and are read differently. 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. Love is seen from the subject's side. 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; from outside, words and deeds and the structure they leave are looked at, and minds are not read. 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; this is not read as a commitment lapsing every day and being made over every day. Endorsement is the two people's making this marriage public to an institution, recognizing that institution's power, and obtaining recognition-based rights in return; where its rules are met, it counts; the rules are acknowledged but not judged, and this side is only registered. Registration and vows can be in the same ceremony, and are entered apart. Endorsement cannot stand in for commitment, nor for love; to use endorsement to avow on the other's behalf slides in the direction of colonization. Endorsement gives commitment and exit alike a public side; commitment and endorsement together is the place that holds only in marriage.
The exclusivity of marriage comes from love, not from agreement, and is not obtained by exchange: the exclusivity of both is two one-way exclusivities meeting; exclusivity applies to love, not to recognition. Three kinds of marriage are not in this series: a purely transactional marriage; a marriage kept up without love between the two; 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. This paper interfaces with Kant, Hegel, Locke and Kierkegaard, and, at the layer of marriage, picks up Gilbert's joint commitment. This paper does not prove that a marriage with endorsement is truer than love without endorsement, does not prove that marriage is the completion of love, and does not prove that people ought to marry.
Introduction
It is the sixth year since Chen Mo and Xu Jing met, and the fourth year they have been together. One morning in October the two went to the marriage registry and got their certificates: they filled in forms, showed their papers, signed a declaration, had a photograph taken; the clerk checked the documents, stamped them and handed over two small red booklets, all in under an hour. That evening, in a small restaurant, in front of twenty-odd relatives and friends, each read out a few words written to the other. At the end of hers, Xu Jing used a line from the Book of Songs: "I take your hand; with you I will grow old." As the party broke up, Chen Mo's uncle clapped him on the shoulder and said: "Good, that's done. You've got the certificate, so now you're one family."
Several things happened in that one day, all of which are ordinarily called "getting married." The stamp put down that morning is one; the words said aloud before relatives and friends that evening are another; the uncle's sentence is yet another. Before that day the two had loved each other for several years; after it, they still have to live on, one day after another. What this paper asks is this: what is the marriage this series reads made up of; among these several things, which is which, and what does each do; can they stand in for one another?
The title is taken from the line at which Love Theory hands over its boundary. Wang Shifu's The Story of the Western Wing closes on "May all the lovers under heaven be joined as husband and wife"; on this line Love Theory hands over its boundary with Marriage Theory: the lovers are in Love Theory; 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; what is handed over is the part that is commitment and institutional protection.1 This paper picks up from this line.
What this paper reads. This series reads only the marriage of two people, and does not claim that marriages of other forms are not marriage; other forms it does not read, and does not judge. Examples use only adult characters, of any sex; for illustration they use the traditional pairing of a man and a woman.
What this series reads is 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: she has her own cannot-not, which I only recognize as there, and whose content I cannot read out; I love her without waiting for her to love me first.2 A layer is an aspect of asking, not a stage; a layer records one operation, not a person, nor a marriage.3 Marriage that carries the 15DD direction means that both people are headed in this direction: headed toward it, not necessarily already there.
This paper reads four things. First, what the marriage this series speaks of is made up of: one premise, three things. Second, commitment: how a sentence at a wedding binds the decades that follow, and how it does not. Third, endorsement: what getting the certificate is, what it can do and what it cannot. Fourth, where exclusivity comes from. Last, it makes clear which kinds of marriage are not in this series, and on what each is read out.
On each of these, the direction of colonization can be read. Colonization, in this series, names the direction of one effect: toward pouring in and occupying; the other direction is cultivation, toward making space. The two are not the two extremes of one scale; the same act can carry both directions, and can also carry no direction at all; the direction is read on this one effect, and whether it took hold is seen in the other party's later understanding and action.4 Violation is judged separately, only at the layer of basic rights.5
Shared words. "Institution" has a broad use and a narrow one. How Is Institution Possible (Foundational Paper 6; cited as F6) takes the broad sense: "any stable rule-framework formed for the recurring handling of entangled intersections counts as an institution," and so "marriage and friendship are micro-relational institutions."6 When this paper speaks of "institutional endorsement," institution means instead the construct outside the two people that, by its own rules, recognizes this marriage: a registry office, a lineage, a church, a village, a circle of relatives and friends, formal or informal. The relation between the two people is itself also a kind of construct; it does not legislate, bears nothing, and does not pass final judgment on either party's own law on their behalf; nor does a little circle of two form a third bearer.7
"Institutional endorsement" refers to the same thing as Love Theory's "institutional protection." This paper uses endorsement because it is thicker, and stronger, than protection: 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.
"Exchange" and "obtaining in return" are used apart. Exchange is between husband and wife: you give me this, I give you that; moments of exchange in marriage are common, are read as falling back, and are read in Paper 4. Obtaining in return is between the two people and the construct that endorses: making it public and recognizing its power, they obtain recognition-based rights in return. The former is between person and person; the latter, between persons and a construct.
"Direction" has two senses in this paper. 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.8
Method. As in Love Theory: the conclusions of upstream papers are said in plain words; sources, the proposition numbers of other papers and the places where upstream words are carried beyond their original place all go in the notes, and where something is extended, this series takes it on as its own undertaking. What has already been said at the relational layer is used here directly, not rewritten; how love works within marriage belongs to Love Theory, and is not rewritten here either. This paper speaks only of structure, not of good and bad, and issues no ought: it does not rank marriages by length, by stability, or by whether there are children.
One couple, Chen Mo and Xu Jing, runs through the whole paper. Both are within scope: later Xu Jing wants to go away for two years of study, and Chen Mo does not stand in her way; he says that is her affair; Chen Mo wants to quit his job and learn carpentry, and Xu Jing acknowledges that this is his. This is a made-up example, used only to see structure; from outside, a married couple's words and deeds are only clues, and do not certify who is at which layer.
§1 The Premise and the Three Things
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
This proposition is the skeleton of the whole paper, and the four sections below each pick up one part of it. Here five things are said first: why the direction is a premise and not a component; what each of the three does; why they cannot stand in for one another; why they are read differently; why registration and vows are entered apart.
A Premise, Not a Component
Counting the 15DD direction as a fourth thing in marriage would look tidier. This series does not count it that way: it first delimits which kind of marriage it reads, and then, within that range, separates out three things. All three are read under this direction: commitment is read as where one stands, not as a debt; endorsement is read as making public to an institution, not as that institution's taking over this union from then on; love is read as this one, irreplaceable, and also as recognizing her as an end too. So lacking one of the three and not being headed in this direction are two different things: the love between the two being gone is one of the three lacking, and that marriage exits scope (MA3); where the direction is no longer there, what is lacking is not one of the three, but this way of reading the three itself. The direction determines how the three are read, so it does not stand alongside them.
This division is not proved by a decision procedure. Each person's avowal and direction cannot be certified on his behalf from outside; a single falling back does not overturn the direction either (MA2). These are the limits of judgment, not the grounds on which the direction cannot be counted as a component.
Writing it this way has upstream precedent. Relation Theory says that seeking relation is the cannot-not of looking toward the other, and writes this sentence as a conditional: wherever the remainder "the other too is an end" is at work in a subject, looking toward the other is its cannot-not.9 Meaning Theory, reading the outward side of a relation, also writes its object as conditional: "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."10 This series has the same form: it does not argue that all marriages have this direction, nor that marriage ought to have it; it says what marriage is made up of, and how it works, when two people are headed in this direction.
What Each of the Three Does
Love. The love between the two is something the marriage this series reads cannot do without: if the love between the two is entirely gone, that marriage is not in this series (MA3); it is also where exclusivity comes from (MA8). Love is seen from the subject's side: whether one loves is the affair of the one who loves. Chen Mo knows his own side, and Xu Jing knows hers; neither makes the other's love a requirement.11
Commitment. Commitment is what each person promised, in word and deed, and where he stands. The words the two read out before everyone that evening are what was promised, in word and deed: what was said can be checked, and others can register it. Where one stands is whether a person afterward still stands where he promised. Commitment binds a person in two places, and neither rests on locking tomorrow: on my side, it rests on where I stand; on the other party's side, on the effects already left; leaving is entered on the books, and revising keeps the books on the change.12 §2 reads this.
Endorsement. Endorsement is the two people's making this union public to an institution, recognizing that institution's power, and obtaining recognition-based rights in return. In making it public they also take on that institution's rules: who may marry, how property is reckoned, what counts as dissolution. §3 reads this.
The Three Cannot Stand In for One Another
Take them pair by pair.
Endorsement cannot stand in for love. The clerk who checked the documents that morning looked at papers, ages and whether either was already married, not at whether the two loved each other; the stamp that came down did not attest to this on their behalf.
Endorsement cannot stand in for commitment. The stamp is that institution's act of recognizing this union, not Chen Mo's promise; what Chen Mo promised is seen in what he himself has said, and in whether he afterward stands there (MA6).
Commitment cannot stand in for love. A person can keep to every word he promised while the love on his own side is already gone. The commitment still binds him, and he can still stand there;13 yet marriage cannot simply be reduced to commitment: if not a share of love is left between the two, then even if both still stand on their commitments, this marriage is no longer the kind this series reads (MA3, MA9).
Love cannot stand in for commitment. Love is read by moments; a share of love says nothing on tomorrow's behalf; my loving her does not add a duty for her either.14 What spans one day after another is commitment, and it rests on where one stands, not on how deep the love is (MA4).
Nor can love and commitment stand in for endorsement. Two people love each other and have promised each other, yet no institution has, by its rules, recognized this union: then there is love, there is commitment, and there is no endorsement. This union is read in Love Theory, and Love Theory has read commitment. This does not say that it lacks something compared with marriage: this paper does not prove that a marriage with endorsement is truer than love without endorsement.
Read Differently
The three cannot stand in for one another, and their readings each keep to their own; read in the wrong place, one ends up reading minds, or judging on a rule's behalf.
Love is seen from the subject's side. What can be seen from outside, a couple looking at each other, an "I love you", years of not parting, are all only clues.15 To read love from outside is to read minds.
Commitment is seen from outside, by words and deeds and the structure they leave. This series does not read minds, and does not judge what a person thinks in his heart; it looks at acts and at structure: what was promised can be checked; whether later words and deeds crossed the line of what was promised can be checked; what arrangements the other party made by it can be checked.16 Whether he still acknowledges that sentence in his heart is a matter at his end, and is not reported from outside.17
Endorsement is seen by that institution's rules. Where its rules are met, it counts; where they are not, that institution has not endorsed (MA5). Whether the two are suited to each other is not looked at, nor is it judged whether that rule is right.
Registration and Vows Are Entered Apart
In many places vows and registration are in the same ceremony: the one officiating hears the two say their vows, pronounces them married on the spot, and registers it on the spot. Chen Mo and Xu Jing did them apart: registration in the morning, the words in the evening. Whether apart or in one ceremony, this paper enters them apart.
Registration is making public to an institution, and is not read as the words and deeds of commitment. The signature Chen Mo put on the declaration declares this marriage to that institution and obtains its recognition in return; what he promised Xu Jing is those few sentences that evening, and where he stands, day after day, afterward. Read the two as one thing and there are two errors. One is to let the stamp stand in for his promise: having got the certificate, he counts as having promised something (MA6). The other is to tie whether the commitment stays or goes to the institution's procedure: as long as the procedure is not finished, he is taken to still stand there; once it is finished, the effects he left with Xu Jing are taken to be settled along with it. Each of the two keeps its own books. Whether the exit declaration and dissolution within the institution are completed at the same time, Paper 7 enters apart.
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
This series reads marriage in which both parties are headed in the 15DD direction. This sentence is easily read as a label: this couple is 15DD, that one is not. It is exactly this reading that this proposition is meant to block.
A Direction, Not a State
Reading love at the layer of recognizing her as an end too, Love Theory has said: "15DD is not easy to achieve to begin with; it is a direction."18 Headed toward it, not yet arrived; a state is at most the posture of a given moment, and reality is always mixed.
The year Xu Jing brought up going away to study, Chen Mo was very tired that day and blurted out: "Then what happens at home?" At that moment he was thinking of his own arrangements. The next day he said: go; that's your affair. The first moment is falling back; the second is headed in this direction. Falling back is read as it occurs, and does not overturn the direction; a layer records one operation, not a person, nor a marriage.
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.19 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; only the three kinds in §5 exit scope.
People are all mixed, so no one can judge the other to be lower. Between husband and wife, Chen Mo does not judge at which layer Xu Jing is, and Xu Jing does not judge him; marriage, like other relations, is two people cultivating each other.
The Object Layer and the Operation Layer
To whom is it said that both parties are headed in this direction? When the Conflict Treatise handles two laws colliding, it keeps two layers apart. The object layer: what is under discussion is, ontologically, really two laws of their own, each formed separately. The operation layer: "I can confirm only my own end. The other end enters as a requirement that the other bears in the first person and by which the other goes on organizing their action. I do not certify whether it has attained the standing of a law of its own, and I do not cancel it on the other's behalf for want of such certification."20 This series reads the direction in marriage by this division.21
The object layer: what this series reads is marriage in which both parties are headed in this direction. The operation layer: Chen Mo can confirm only his own end. Xu Jing's end appears before him as her first-person avowal and where she stands: what she says, what she does, how she treats him. He does not certify that she is already there, nor, for being unable to certify it, does he cancel it on her behalf.
So "both" is scope, not a requirement that one party in a marriage puts to the other. To demand of the other, "You should be headed in this direction too," is to take my direction as her ruler; Aesthetics Ray 11 says: "My cannot-not is not your must."22
If it is later confirmed that the object did not obtain, for instance it is later found that this marriage's exit had long since been sealed off, this series exits this case, and does not turn and judge the other end. The Conflict Treatise says in the same place: "Exiting says: this case does not belong here. Turning to judge says: the other end does not qualify. The first is about scope; the second is about a person, and the second is not within the powers exercised here."23
What Can Be Said from Outside
From outside, the love, avowal and layer of either end are not certified, and a real marriage is not characterized on this basis either. Neighbors see one couple go decades without a quarrel and say they are a good pair; see another quarrel every few days and say that pair is no good: neither remark is about what is read here. A long absence of quarrels is not evidence of cultivation.24
Yet some things can be checked from outside. Whether exit has been sealed off is a matter of structure: whether the papers are in the person's own hands, whether contact with the outside has been cut, whether the cost of leaving is already so great that one actually cannot leave.25 Of structural conditions of this kind, which can already be checked, this series can say whether its premise holds there (MA9). To say so is to speak of the structure that marriage has settled into, not to turn and 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
Marriage must have love. In this series this sentence has a definite meaning: what is required is the love between the two; where the love between the two is entirely gone, that marriage is not among the marriages this series reads.
"Entirely gone" means that not a share of love is left between the two. Imagine two couples, both married twenty years, and in both the love between the two long gone. In the one, both still want this marriage: the look of a household, a status, someone to look after them, a whole household for the children. In the other, neither seeks anything marriage gives; only because they once promised before everyone does each stand where he promised. This series reads the two couples the same way: neither is any longer the marriage it reads; both exit scope.
Why the same reading? Of the three things, love is the one whose being "gone" takes the marriage out of scope (MA1). What the first couple needs is written into the example; but this reading does not rest on it: what is needed, and for what, is a matter in each one's heart, and this series does not read it. In the second couple each stands on his commitment; the commitment still binds, that each stands there is real, and staying has its grounds;26 yet marriage cannot simply be reduced to commitment. The structure the two couples have settled into is one and the same: of the three things, love is lacking. What this series looks at is this structure; it does not read for what each one stays.
Exiting scope is not criticism. This series does not say which of the two couples is worse, does not say what either one has taken the other for, and does not say they should part; it says only that such marriages are not within the range it reads.
Where one party's love is gone and the other's is still there, it is another case: if that party 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. Paper 7 reads this.
So what this series reads is marriage in which both have love: where one party's is lacking, from then on it is not here; where both are gone, still less. The two couples above are read only as cases where both are gone, in order to block one reading: "Both still stand on their commitments, so it is still in."
This sentence too is said only conditionally. Love is seen from the subject's side and cannot be read from outside; no one can determine from outside that the love between a married couple is gone (MA9).
What is required is the love between the two. Imagine another couple: both love their daughter very much and have done a great deal for her; between them, love has long been gone, and they stay together so that their daughter has a household. The love for the child is real; but it lies between each of them and the child, and belongs to Parent-Child Theory. Between husband and wife, of the three things, love is still lacking. Love for the child cannot stand in for the love between the two, and such a marriage is not among the marriages this series reads either. This does not say that such a household is bad, nor that the two should part; it says only that it is not the kind this series reads.
How love works within marriage is read by Love Theory: read by moments, seen from the subject's side; husband and wife each know only the love on their own side.27 This series does not rewrite it; it uses "having love" only as a condition of scope, and as where exclusivity comes from (MA8).
§2 Commitment
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
The line Xu Jing read comes from the fourth stanza of "Beating the Drum," in the Airs of Bei of the Book of Songs: "In death or in life, however far apart, I made my pledge with you. I take your hand; with you I will grow old."28 How these lines are to be read has never been settled: Zheng Xuan's commentary reads them as a pact among soldiers of the same file; Zhu Xi's Collected Commentaries on the Book of Songs reads them as a man on campaign thinking of his wife at home, recalling how, when they first married, they pledged that in death or life, however far apart, they would not forget or forsake each other, and took each other's hands, and pledged to grow old together.29 Read at today's weddings, the line is taken in the latter reading; here too only the shape of the vow in the latter reading is borrowed, and the poem's original meaning is not judged.
"With you I will grow old" is a sentence about all the days that follow. The evening it was said was only one evening. By what does a sentence said one evening bind the decades that follow? If it can bind them, why can a person still leave?
By What Commitment Binds
Relation Theory's paper on commitment has answered this question: commitment does not bind exit, and it does not sign for tomorrow; it binds a person in two places, and neither rests on locking tomorrow: on my side, it rests on where I stand; on the other party's side, on the effects already left. Leaving is entered on the books, and revising keeps the books on the change; a commitment already made to others is not cleared from the books by one act of leaving.30
Where one stands is taken from the Second Critique: a person's own law binds him, "It rests on where one stands"; as long as he still stands where he promised, there are things he cannot cancel; he can also leave, and leaving is entered on the books.31 After that evening, Xu Jing hesitated for a while over an opportunity a company in another city offered her, and then turned it down; she went by what the two had agreed: to live together, and to make their home in this city. Her turning it down is the effect those words left in her. If Chen Mo later changes his mind, this effect does not vanish because he has changed.
Commitment is entered as three things: what was promised, in word and deed; where one stands, and revising; the effects left.32 The words at the wedding are the first; whether Chen Mo, afterward, day after day, still stands there is the second; the job Xu Jing turned down, the flat the two bought together, the arrangements each made for the days to come, are the third.
The Same Promise Made Anew Each Day
In an appendix to F6 there is a set of SAE Marriage Principles; it says at the outset that it is "not a contract"; its last item is on remainders, and one entry there reads: "The most honest remainder: we do not know what kind of people we will be in five years. We can only make commitments based on who we are now, and then choose, every day in the future, to honor that commitment. Marriage is not one promise; it is the same promise made anew each day."33 That appendix is a working demonstration, not evidentiary; what this paper reads is the principle contained in this sentence.
Relation Theory has already read this sentence: "whoever stands there on any given day is the person of today; fulfillment must finally be done by the person now. It is not read as a commitment lapsing every day and being made over every day."34 Each half blocks one side.
The first half blocks taking that evening as having signed for decades. The Chen Mo of that evening cannot stand in for the Chen Mo of each day after; whoever stands there on any given day is the Chen Mo of that day. What kind of person he would be in five years, the Chen Mo of that evening did not know. Commitment cannot lock tomorrow; that it cannot lock lies in the layer of qualification, and is necessary.35 So "with you I will grow old" is not a contract already signed, waiting for time to make it good; it has to be fulfilled one day at a time, by the person of today.
The second half blocks the other side: reading "made anew each day" as the commitment falling due each day, re-signed each morning, and not counting on the day it is not re-signed. On some day Chen Mo is so busy that he forgets those words; that day's commitment has not lapsed: being asleep, having not thought of it for a while, having made no fresh declaration this time, none of these by itself cancels what was undertaken before.36 Nor is the commitment a new one each day: then it would have no past, and the job Xu Jing turned down by it would have nowhere to be entered on the books.
So it is "the same," and it is also "made anew." The same: what was promised, and the effects already left, run on unbroken; made anew: each day it is still the person of today who stands there. The commitment of marriage lies between these two halves.
Marriage is where both halves press hardest. F6 writes the conditions of marriage: "the deepest co-construction between two subjects; exclusive; exit right is absolute but exit cost is high (emotional bonds, shared life, possibly children)."37 The exit right is absolute, so nothing locks; there is shared life, so many effects are left. What stands day after day, and what is left day after day, are both thicker than in other relations.
A Vow Is Not a Lock in the Other Party's Hands
A vow is where the one who speaks it stands today. It can also be taken up to do something else.
Suppose that one day Xu Jing wants to leave, and Chen Mo says: "You said 'With you I will grow old' in front of all those people, so you're not allowed to leave." This sentence characterizes her exit, says for her what this exit amounts to, and slides in the direction of colonization; whether it took hold is seen in whether she afterward lets this characterization stand in for her own judgment of whether to leave.38 If he goes on to say, if you leave, I'll make sure you can't stay in this city, that raises the cost of her exit outward; once spoken it carries the direction of colonization, without waiting to be carried out; to hold back her papers and cut off her contact with the outside, so that she actually cannot leave, is to seal off her exit itself, which at the layer of basic rights is a violation.39 A marriage whose exit has been sealed off is no longer in this series (MA9).
A vow can also be turned against oneself. A person once swore never to divorce; years later he wants to leave, and each time the thought rises, it is struck down by his own "I swore," with no one stopping him. This kind is not in this series either; it is read by a different set of terms; see §5.
How breach of faith is entered, only one sentence here: breach of faith is entered apart, as dropping, falsity, non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement; dropping and falsity are first-person matters, and from outside only non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement are reported, together with traces.40 The last stanza of "Beating the Drum" laments: "Alas, so far apart! It will not let me live. Alas, so distant! It will not let me keep my word." Here too the readings differ; following the reading of a pact between husband and wife, it can be read as distance keeping the first pact from being made good. By the division of breach of faith, that is obstruction: the words said are still there, the one who stands there is still there, and the road has been cut. Breaking the commitment of marriage is read in Paper 7.
§3 Endorsement
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
Back to that morning. What Chen Mo and Xu Jing did at the registry can be read by the three steps of endorsement.
Making public to an institution. The two bring this union before an institution's eyes: they show their papers, fill in forms, sign the declaration. Before, this union was only with themselves and with a few friends and family; after, it is in an institution's records.
Recognizing the institution's power. In making it public, the two also recognize that institution's power over this union: it prescribes who may marry, how property is reckoned, what happens after one of them is gone, what counts as dissolution. They need not have read these rules one by one; having got the certificate, they have taken them on.
Obtaining recognition-based rights in return. What they obtain is that institution's recognition of this union, and the rights that come with it: within that institution, the two are recognized as husband and wife; when one is gravely ill, the other can sign; when one is gone, the other can inherit.
Endorsement is not only state registration. A lineage's wedding, a church's marriage rite, a village feast, the recognition of a circle of relatives and friends: each has its own rules, formal or informal. Merely being known about, or being blessed, does not count; there must be an act by which that circle recognizes this union by its own customs, such as entry in the genealogy, or a rite performed. The uncle's "now you're one family" speaks of just such another institution's endorsement: a family line has recognized this union by its own customs. Several endorsements can exist together, or there can be only one; each counts by its own rules.
Where that institution's rules are met, it counts; where they are not, that institution has not endorsed. In an institution that recognizes only registration, a couple who held only a feast and did not register has been endorsed by the village, and not by that institution. Where a rule does not permit it, that institution has not endorsed; this series does not on that account judge that rule.
The rules themselves are acknowledged but not judged. This series does not judge whether a rule is right: what rules that institution has, and what it has endorsed by them, are acknowledged here, and registered as conditions of the effects between the two. To acknowledge is not to stand surety for it: the existence of a registered endorsement does not lead this series to endorse the legitimacy of its rules.
This side is only registered, not argued. Endorsement has two things in it, the institution's power and recognition-based rights; this series unfolds neither, derives no propositions from these two concepts, and does not judge their readings; they belong to the branches on power and on rights.41 Obtaining in return happens between the two people and that construct, between persons and a construct; Relation Theory reads only the collisions between person and person; the relation between persons and constructs is not within its scope, and the provisions themselves are acknowledged but not judged.42 This series speaks only of relation: what one person does to the other by way of endorsement is read as between person and person (MA6).
Whether the endorsement counts goes by that institution's rules; whether that marriage is in this series is another matter, and goes by §5. A registered marriage can fall outside this series; one in this series does not, because its endorsement counts, gain an additional share of love or commitment.
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
In the second year after they got the certificate, in a quarrel, Chen Mo said: "We've got the certificate, so you're mine."
This sentence used endorsement to do what endorsement cannot do. What endorsement says is: within that institution, by its rules, these two are husband and wife. It does not say what Xu Jing promised, still less that from now on she belongs to anyone. "You're mine" uses that institution's recognition to avow on Xu Jing's behalf: to avow that she belongs to him, and how she is to be from now on.
No one else can avow on my behalf. In writing of implicit commitment, Relation Theory set up this line of defense: it "cannot be inferred from duration or habit alone, nor decided on my behalf by someone else"; of what can be said, only two sentences cannot: "All these years, so you promised"; "I'm deciding on your behalf that you promised."43 "We've got the certificate, so you're mine" is the second sentence with its source changed: not I deciding on your behalf, but an institution used to decide on your behalf. The source has changed; the structure has not.
This sentence fixes for Xu Jing what getting the certificate means to her, and slides in the direction of colonization.44 The direction is read on this one effect; whether it took hold is seen in her later course: if from then on she measures herself by this sentence, and feels that, having got the certificate, wherever she goes and whatever she does must first be referred to him, that direction has taken hold; if she retorts on the spot, "The certificate doesn't say that," and goes on judging for herself, that direction has not taken hold of her. The same sentence can also be no more than a lover's line, and both of them laugh; what is read is what it was used to do on that occasion, not its wording.
The uncle's sentence is different. "You've got the certificate, so now you're one family" speaks of that family line's endorsement; in itself it avows nothing on anyone's behalf. If in the second year it turns into "You're one of our family now, so of course you'll spend New Year with us," fixing for Xu Jing how she is to spend New Year, that occasion is read by this proposition.
Endorsement cannot stand in for love either. The certificate does not record love; with the certificate, love is not thereby guaranteed; love is still read by moments, from each one's own side (MA3). That endorsement cannot stand in for commitment, §1 has already said: the stamp is that institution's act; a promise is each person's own words and deeds and where he stands.
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
What endorsement cannot stand in for, the last proposition said. What it does, this proposition says in two parts.
One is making public. Before registration, Chen Mo and Xu Jing's commitment was between the two of them, and with a few relatives and friends. After registration, that institution's records state that they are husband and wife; from then on hospitals, banks, employers and neighbors all treat them by this record. The commitment itself is still each person's words and deeds and where he stands; what is made public is the record of the endorsement, and because many people make arrangements by it, the commitment also gains, outside the two, a side that can be seen.
Exit too gains a public side. In a union without endorsement, one party's leaving is withdrawing his own side; where there is commitment, leaving must be entered on the books, and there must also be an exit declaration that the other party can clearly understand.45 Where there is endorsement, there is in addition dissolution within that institution: by its rules, with its procedures. That a person can leave is not a layer that institution gives; what it gives is the public procedure of dissolution within it. The two steps are entered apart, and Paper 7 reads them.
This is also where marriage parts from the relations next to it. F6 writes of friendship: "Subtract exclusivity and deep commitment from marriage";46 in Love Theory, exclusivity and commitment are both already present. What holds only in marriage falls where commitment and endorsement are together, and on the public side that endorsement brings to commitment and exit. 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.
The other is condition. Endorsement can also be one of the conditions created for someone who has not yet come: in what recognition a child will one day be born, how that institution recognizes what lies between him and his parents: endorsement is already there in advance. To say "can also" is to say that it need not be, and need not be the only one. Two people creating conditions together for someone who has not yet come is read in Paper 5.
§4 Exclusivity
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
Where does exclusivity in marriage come from? There are three answers: from agreement, the two have agreed it; from rules, that institution permits only monogamy; from exchange, I keep only to you, and you keep only to me. This series' answer is: from love.
From Love
Reading love at the layer of recognizing her as an end too, Love Theory separates two things: "recognizing her as an end too, a recognition that is not exclusive and does not grow smaller because one loves this one; and the cannot-not toward this one, irreplaceable, which is exclusive."47 Love at this layer is persistently exclusive, not alternating between two people.48 Before Chen Mo and Xu Jing got their certificate, exclusivity was already there; marriage did not make it.
Commitment Acknowledges It; Endorsement Makes It Public
Commitment acknowledges it, and says it out loud. Among the words the two read that evening was "Only you." This sentence put the exclusivity already there into what was promised, in word and deed, and into where each would stand every day after.
The binding of commitment is seen from outside by acts and structure: what was promised; whether later words and deeds crossed the line of what was promised; what arrangements the other party made by it.49 One year Chen Mo was drawn to a colleague, for one evening; he said nothing, and did nothing. That is a matter in his heart, and this series does not judge it: thoughts not expressed in word or deed do not enter the other party's conditions of occurrence; it does not break the commitment, and carries no direction of colonization.50 Whether he still stands where he promised is a matter at his end.51
Endorsement makes it public. That institution's monogamy is its rule; this series does not derive exclusivity from that rule, but only registers: this union's exclusivity has gained, within that institution, a public side.
Two One-Way Exclusivities Meeting
The exclusivity of both is two one-way exclusivities meeting. Chen Mo's exclusivity is his, Xu Jing's is hers; both come from each one's love, and when they meet, it is mutual.52
It is not obtained by exchange. If it were obtained by exchange, then once one party stopped keeping to it, the other's share would be released along with it: "You wronged me first, so I don't have to keep to it either." It is not read this way here: where they do not meet, each one's share is still there as before;53 whether her share is still there is settled by her own love and where she stands, not carried off automatically with his. Nor is it generated by agreement: agreement acknowledges it and says it out loud; it did not make it.
The direction of colonization read from this item is using love to demand exclusivity. "I love you this much, so you can't so much as look at anyone else": this sentence uses one's own love to set up a duty of exclusivity for her. Love that recognizes her as an end too does not demand exclusivity of her; whether she is exclusive can be decided only by her.54 This sentence falls back to the layer of purpose (14DD), taking my direction as her ruler.55
Recognition Is Not Exclusive
Exclusivity applies to love, not to recognition. Having married, Chen Mo does not on that account recognize others less as ends too: he recognizes his friends, his students, a stranger in the street as ends too, and this share does not grow smaller because there is Xu Jing. Pushing exclusivity up to the layer of recognition, two people recognizing each other and recognizing no one else, Aesthetics Ray 13 calls preferential love: "Two people recognize each other and recognize no one else: a small circle."56
§5 Marriages Not in This Series
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
This series does not read three kinds of marriage. They are read out in different ways; read differently, they can be spoken of to different extents.
One thing first: not reading them is not saying they are not marriages. This series reads only marriage that carries the 15DD direction, and does not claim that others are not marriage; these three are not within the range it reads, and that is all.
Purely Transactional Marriage
Both parties treat the other only as a means: she wants his family background, he wants her name; each takes what he needs, and who the other is does not matter. This is an ideal type, not a label attached to any real marriage. What can be seen from outside are only clues: a carefully calculated prenuptial agreement, a match from which both families profit, do not by themselves prove that there is only a transaction between the two. So this kind is said only conditionally: if both parties treat the other only as a means, this marriage is not in this series.
Pure transaction speaks only of what lies between husband and wife. 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 obtained by exchange, that is another matter, read in Paper 5. A moment of exchange in marriage, "You cook, I'll wash up," is falling back, is common, and does not make a marriage purely transactional; division of labor is not exchange either; Paper 4 reads this.
Marriage Kept Up Without Love Between the Two
§1 has already said it (MA3): 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 not among the marriages this series reads; this series looks at structure, and does not criticize. This kind too is said only conditionally: love is seen from the subject's side, and cannot be read from outside. Where both love the child and there is no love between them, it is here too. Where one party's love is gone and the other's is still there, Paper 7 reads it.
Marriage Whose Exit Has Been Sealed Off
Sealing comes by three routes, and is read in two ways.
Sealed off by a construct. An institution's power can raise the cost of a person's exit: divorce takes years of litigation, the party who leaves loses all property and the children, the village no longer recognizes him from then on. Raising the cost is acknowledged but not judged here; raised until he actually cannot leave, it is sealing off.57 What is read here is the structure that marriage has settled into between the two, that the person cannot leave, not that institution's rules; the rules are still acknowledged but not judged (MA5). So an institution in which divorce is very hard does not by itself prove that every marriage there has been sealed off; merely not having obtained dissolution within the institution does not by itself prove that the person cannot leave either. Being able to leave means whether the person himself can actually exit these dealings, withdraw his own side; Paper 7 checks this separately.
Sealed off by the other party. Relation Theory reads what is done to exit at the layer of running as three kinds, divided by structure; the third is sealing off exit itself, by whatever means: "holding back his papers, cutting off all his contact with the outside, shutting him in or raising the cost until he is trapped"; only this is locking; at the layer of basic rights it is a violation, and it also carries the direction of colonization.58 The third kind looks only at structure: at whether the consequences can be carried out and how great they are, not at how afraid she is; fear by itself does not show that exit has been sealed off.59
Why are these two not in this series? The marriage this series reads has as its premise that a person is an end: both parties are headed in the direction of recognizing the other as an end too; that exit is still within reach in running is this premise's condition in structure. Where exit has been sealed off by a construct, or by the other party, this condition no longer holds: the structure that marriage has settled into has put the person in a position where he would stay even if only because he cannot leave, and structurally reduces him to a means. Whether the person himself at this point still stands where he promised is a matter at his end, and is entered separately: having grounds and being under a lock can coexist,60 and it cannot be inferred from his being unable to leave that he no longer stands there. Here exit from scope is explained by the visible structure, and his grounds are not judged on his behalf. These two look at structure, and can be read from outside.
Sealed in by the person himself with a vow. The person in §2 swore years ago never to divorce; now he wants to leave, no one stops him, and each time the thought rises it is struck down by his own "I swore."
Why is this kind not in this series either? Back to §2: marriage is the same promise made anew each day, and whoever stands there on any given day is the person of today. If the vow, in running, makes his step of exiting this marriage actually unreachable, the structural condition this series requires does not hold for him either. Who stands here is still the person of today; what is pressed down is his room, in running, to revise and to exit, not his position having passed over to that evening. The half that is made anew each day he can still make in qualification, but in running he cannot reach that step: the vow's seal has, in running, sealed off his possibility of changing. Whether at this point he still avows staying is entered separately; locking itself does not answer this question for him.
Yet this kind is not called self-colonization. Reading one and the same person's yesterday, today and tomorrow, Relation Theory laid down: "A lock that comes wholly from oneself, with no outside provenance of any kind behind it, is not called colonization; all that can be said is that the subject has since changed"; locking is only at the layer of running, the positions of avowal, revision and exit still belong to this person, and an earlier position cannot seal off a later one.61 Speaking of commitment, Relation Theory also comes to this case: "where a person, by a vow, makes the step of his own revision actually unreachable in running, this is read as locking"; within self-relation, violation is not spoken of.62 So this kind is read as locking: the person can change, and the position is still his; what is sealed is his room, in running, to reach that step. If what holds up that lock is no longer he himself but an outside saying, for instance if each time the thought rises what he tells himself is "No one in our family has ever divorced," and he has never taken this sentence as his own, then it is no longer only his own locking: he has been colonized; an outside saying has occupied his own step of revision. How things stand between his own yesterday and today is entered separately, at the place where Relation Theory reads self-relation, and no separate name is given to it here; the two entries are recorded side by side and do not cancel each other. What the sentence quoted above declines to call colonization is a lock that comes wholly from oneself, with no outside provenance of any kind behind it; behind this lock there is an outside provenance.63 This reading too is said only conditionally: from outside, one cannot see whether that sentence is, at this moment, holding up this lock.64
This kind is counted only where the vow really makes the exit from this marriage itself actually unreachable. The vow's name does not count: having said "Faithful unto death" is not the same as having sealed it off. Many years without change does not count either: stability proves nothing; a content that has not moved in ten years may be a position standing open with nothing he has wanted to change, or a position locked with nothing he can change.65 A revision that once came under pressure does not count either. This is a first-person matter; from outside one cannot see whether that lock is holding, so it is said only conditionally.
Arising After Marriage
The latter two can arise after marriage: the love between the two is gone in some year; exit is sealed off in some year. That marriage exits scope from then on, and this is not traced back. The Conflict Treatise calls one kind of case object dissolution: the judgment of entry originally held, later changes make the original object no longer hold, and the original object exits scope from that point, without ratifying the past.66
What exits scope is this case, not these two people. In exiting that marriage, this series does not turn and judge the two people's own direction and love, nor the time before: the years before are read as the years before.67
§6 Interfacing with Tradition
Several have asked, one after another, about the things this paper reads. For each, this paper writes faithfully what he sees and why he looks, what he presses on this paper, where they meet and where they part; other traditions appear in their own words. Of those on commitment, Hume, Kant, Scanlon, and Confucius and Mencius on good faith, Relation Theory has already done the interfacing; they are pointed back to here, not rewritten; Gilbert's joint commitment Relation Theory has also interfaced, and here only the layer of marriage is picked up.68
Mutual acquisition (Kant). In the private-right part of the Doctrine of Right, Kant places marriage under a special kind of right: right to a person akin to a right to a thing. He defines marriage as two persons' lifelong reciprocal possession.69 He asks: how can a person's being acquired in marriage by another, as a thing, be compatible with his personality? He answers in §25: it is possible only under one condition, that as the one person is acquired by the other as a thing, that person equally acquires the other reciprocally, and thereby regains and restores his rational personality.70 §26 goes on to say that the two stand in a relation of equality in the possession of each other's persons and goods.71
He looks in order to give marriage a place in the system of right: to explain under what condition such possession is compatible with personality. What he sees: in marriage there is the danger of turning the other into a means, and what can block it must be present on both sides.
He presses on this paper at three points. First, for him, marriage is compatible with personality on the condition of the juridical form of mutual acquisition; the love between the two, which this paper says marriage cannot do without (MA1, MA3), is not part of that condition for him. Second, he reads the relation of the two as equality in possession: I am acquired by you, and I acquire you; this paper says exclusivity is not obtained by exchange (MA8), and has to be measured against this mutual shape. Third, his definition has "lifelong" in it; §25 also gives a spouse a right of recovery: if one runs away or passes into another's possession, the other is entitled, at any time and incontestably, to bring that one back to the former relation, "as if that person were a thing."72 That commitment cannot lock tomorrow, and that a person can leave, both have to be measured against this right.
They meet in: in marriage a person may not be used merely as a thing, and what can block this must hold on both sides; this paper has as its premise that a person is an end, and stands on his side here. They part at three points. First, he places the restoring of personality on the juridical form of mutual acquisition; this paper has as its premise the direction of recognizing the other as an end too; the love between the two is something it cannot do without, and the form of endorsement cannot stand in for love (MA1, MA6). Second, exclusivity he speaks of from equality in possession; this paper reads it as coming from love, as two one-way exclusivities meeting (MA8). Third, "lifelong" and the right of recovery first prescribe a juridical relation, and do not directly stand as counter-evidence to what this paper says of where one stands and of actual exit, nor the reverse; this paper reads commitment as unable to lock tomorrow, necessarily so at the layer of qualification, and whoever stands there on any given day is the person of today (MA4); bringing a person back, if in running it seals his exit, is in this paper sealing off (MA9). He speaks of right; this paper speaks only of relation, and only registers the institutional side (MA5). Hegel's criticism that he lowers marriage to a contract for reciprocal use comes with the next figure.
Not a contract (Hegel). In the Philosophy of Right, Hegel treats the family, the first moment of ethical life, beginning with marriage. §162: the objective source of marriage lies in the free consent of the two persons, in particular their consent to make themselves one person, renouncing for this unity their natural and individual personality.73 §163: the ethical aspect of marriage lies in the parties' consciousness of this unity as their substantive aim, and so in their love, trust and common sharing of their entire existence as individuals; the spiritual bond thereby rises above the contingency of passion and the caprice of the moment, and is in itself indissoluble. The Remark says: marriage, in its essential basis, is not a contractual relation; though it begins in contract, it is precisely a contract to transcend the standpoint of contract.74 §164: the solemn declaration of the parties' consent to enter the ethical bond of marriage, together with the corresponding recognition and confirmation by family and community, constitutes the formal completion and actuality of marriage; only after this ceremony, by way of the sign, language, is the knot tied and made ethical.75 In the Addition to §161 he criticizes Kant directly: to regard marriage only as a civil contract, "and even Kant does this," lowers marriage to a contract for reciprocal use.76
He looks in order to set the family at the starting point of ethical life, and also to rescue marriage from contract. He sees three things: marriage is not an exchange between two independent persons; marriage needs words said aloud; the community's recognition belongs to marriage.
He presses on this paper at two points. First, he reads free consent, ethical unity and the community's recognition together: declaration and recognition complete the ethical relation in form, and the knot is tied only after this ceremony. This paper enters vows and registration apart, and says that endorsement cannot stand in for commitment, nor for love (MA6); what has to be compared is what place declaration and recognition hold in the coming-into-being of the ethical relation. He does not say that the ceremony avows on behalf of someone who has not avowed, nor that it makes love: the root of §162 and §163 is still free consent, love and trust. Second, marriage is two people's consenting to make themselves one person; "You are you, I am I" is for him precisely the standpoint to be transcended; marriage is in itself indissoluble, so exit is not within the proper meaning of marriage.
They meet in: marriage is not obtained by exchange; neither exclusivity nor union is a transaction (MA8); the vow has to be said aloud, and is checkable words and deeds; the community's recognition is one of the things in marriage. Of this paper's three things, he puts two into §164. They part at three points. First, he joins declaration and recognition into one ceremony; this paper enters them apart: the vow is the words and deeds of a promise, registration is making public to an institution, and neither that ceremony nor that record makes love or commitment (MA1, MA6); entering them apart is not the same as having refuted his account of how the ethical relation comes into being. Second, "one person": this paper follows Relation Theory: a little circle of two does not form a third bearer, and a relation does not pass final judgment on either party's own law on their behalf;77 "You are you, I am I" is read in Paper 2. Third, indissolubility: this paper reads commitment as unable to lock tomorrow (MA4); divorce, and the ethical authority he hands to a third party in §176, Paper 7 picks up.
A voluntary compact (Locke). Chapter VII of Locke's Second Treatise of Government treats the several societies that come before political society, and the first is conjugal society: "Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman," bringing mutual support and assistance, and a communion of interests too.78 From the rearing of their common offspring he comes to why this union lasts longer than among other creatures; then he asks: where the rearing of children and inheritance are both provided for, why may this compact not be made determinable, like any other voluntary compact, by consent, or at a certain time, or on certain conditions? Neither the nature of the thing nor its ends require that it always be for life.79 Nor is the husband's power anything like that of an absolute monarch: in many cases, where natural right or their contract allows it, the wife has a liberty to separate from him.80
He looks in order to separate the power of the husband and father from political power. What he sees: marriage begins in a voluntary step of two people; it need not be for life; one party's separating is, in many cases, her liberty.
He presses on this paper: marriage, for him, is a voluntary compact; support, the communion of interests, and whether it can be dissolved at a certain time or on certain conditions can all be settled by the compact; this paper says exclusivity is not generated by agreement (MA8), and whether a commitment stays or goes does not rest on terms either; the two have to be measured against each other. Yet for him the compact cannot settle everything either: §81 measures it by the nature of the thing and the ends of this union, §82 bounds it by what natural right or their contract allows. So it cannot be inferred from "voluntary compact" that for him all binding is created by compact.
They meet in: marriage need not be for life, which runs the same way as commitment's not locking tomorrow; the wife's liberty to separate runs the same way as a person's being able to leave. They part at two points. First, for him each party's binding is given by compact, within the limits of natural right and the ends of the union; this paper reads commitment as binding by where one stands and by the effects already left, not turning into a duty to the other party,81 and exclusivity as coming from love, agreement only acknowledging it and saying it out loud (MA8). Second, his separating is bounded by what natural right or the contract allows; this paper reads exit as a person's being able to leave, a layer not given by agreement or by institution; what the institution gives is the procedure of dissolution (MA7); Paper 7 reads this.
The aesthetic validity of marriage (Kierkegaard). The second volume of Kierkegaard's Either/Or is two long letters from Judge William to the young aesthete A; the first is titled "The Aesthetic Validity of Marriage." What follows relies on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's account:82 for the Judge, marriage is precisely the way romantic love endures; marriage embodies the ethical life insofar as it provides an environment in which two people can progressively reveal themselves to each other over a lifetime; such love can be made "eternal" by being freely taken upon as one's duty.
He writes to A, who lives in the aesthetic, to show that marriage is not opposed to romantic love but is where it endures. What he sees: marriage is lived in time; love can go through time; two people reveal themselves to each other one day at a time. What he leaves this paper is a question to be measured: how are a freely undertaken duty and love's enduring in time joined together? By this account, that duty is one he takes upon himself, directed inward, and it does not give the other a right to claim love from him; "eternal" does not cancel the undertaking from day to day either. Here only the comparison is registered; no opposition is set up.
They meet in: marriage is in time, and has to be lived one day at a time (MA4); the duty he speaks of is freely undertaken and directed inward, not the kind the other claims from me, and this stands on the same side as where one stands. They part at: this paper does not let commitment guarantee love. Love is read by moments, from each one's own side; what spans one day after another is commitment, which rests on where one stands, and does not guarantee tomorrow's love. Nor does this paper prove that marriage is the completion of love. The place where the aesthete A writes on Don Giovanni, Love Theory Paper 4 has already picked up.83
Joint commitment (Gilbert). Gilbert says that several people committing together constitute a joint commitment; absent some other joint arrangement, it can be rescinded only by all the parties together, not unilaterally. Relation Theory has already interfaced with her: at the layer of qualification this series says the opposite: commitment cannot lock tomorrow; when a party withdraws his own side, it is withdrawn, only it does not clear the books on the other party's side; Relation Theory also writes that this shows what this series keeps, and does not amount to having already explained all of her normative features.84 Marriage is where her account presses hardest: two people saying their vows together before everyone looks like the very paradigm of joint commitment; that a person cannot simply walk away also looks like saying that it can be rescinded only together. This paper picks up the layer of marriage, and answers at three points. First, even if the vow is said by the two together, where each one stands is still each one's own; this paper writes "each person's own commitment" for exactly this (MA1). Second, the weight by which a person cannot simply walk away, this paper reads as the effects already left, which exit does not settle,85 together with the public procedure that endorsement brings to exit (MA7); it does not read it as being rescindable only together. Third, which branch the "we" of saying the vows together is, Paper 2 reads. The restriction Relation Theory left is brought along here.
§7 Drawing Together and Downstream
This paper has laid down nine propositions. Taken together, they say: the marriage this series reads has as its premise that both parties are headed in the 15DD direction; a direction is not a state, people are all mixed, and "both" is scope, not a requirement between husband and wife. Under this premise, marriage is made up of three things: love, each person's own commitment, institutional endorsement; the three do different work, cannot stand in for one another, and are read differently. Marriage requires the love between the two; where the love between the two is entirely gone, whether the two still need it or keep it up only by commitment, it is not among the marriages this series reads, and this series does not criticize. 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, and this is not read as lapsing every day and being made over every day. Endorsement is making public to an institution, recognizing its power, and obtaining recognition-based rights in return; its rules are acknowledged but not judged, and this side is only registered. Endorsement cannot stand in for commitment, nor for love; to use it to avow on the other's behalf slides in the direction of colonization. It gives commitment and exit a public side; commitment and endorsement together is the place that holds only in marriage. Exclusivity comes from love; it is two one-way exclusivities meeting, and exclusivity applies to love. Three kinds of marriage are not in this series, each read in its own way; where either of the latter two arises after marriage, it exits scope from then on; this is not traced back, and this series does not turn and judge anyone.
This paper does not prove that a marriage with endorsement is truer than love without endorsement, does not prove that marriage is the completion of love, and does not prove that people ought to marry.
The question left open. That evening Chen Mo and Xu Jing said together: "We're married." What is the "we" in this sentence: doing things together, mutual recognition, or a third that legislates for the two? Hegel says two people consent to make themselves one person; the uncle says that now they are one family. This paper has spoken only of each person's own commitment, not of "we." You are you, I am I, and only then is there an us; this sentence is read in Paper 2.
Downstream. What this paper has laid down is used by the papers that follow as follows. The premise and the three things are the scope of the whole series; the separation of the object layer and the operation layer, saying things only conditionally, and reading from outside only words and deeds and structure, the whole series uses as they stand. "We" and the household are read in Paper 2. How the same promise made anew each day is lived through the long years, how two people choose again together after a person has changed, moments of exchange and division of labor, are read in Paper 4. Endorsement as one of the conditions created for someone who has not yet come, and the child treated only as a condition obtained by exchange, Paper 5 picks up. Breaking the commitment of marriage, one party's love being gone, the two steps of divorce, sealing off and exit, are read in Paper 7. The check on the shared words "institutional endorsement" and "institutional protection," the broad sense of "institution," and "exchange" and "obtaining in return" is listed together in Paper 0.
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.
Notes
- 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); Love Theory Paper 0 follows the Wikisource transcription, and notes that the Project Gutenberg #23906 text reads 有情人的. ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 0, §2, the table, the row for recognizing her as an end too (15DD): "She has her own cannot-not; I love her without waiting for her to love me first"; Love Theory L35: "She has her own cannot-not; I only recognize that it is there, and cannot read out its content". Love at this layer is read in Love Theory Paper 5. ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 0, §2: "A layer is an aspect of asking, not a stage. A layer records one operation; it does not record a person, nor a love." Here, by the same token, it does not record a marriage either. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H8: cultivation and colonization are two directions, cultivation going toward making space and 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; the two are not the two extremes of one scale, and the same act can carry both directions, and can also carry no direction at all. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H9: "Violation is judged separately, and only at the layer of basic rights; it and the direction of colonization are two lines". ↩︎
- F6 §1.3. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H3: "A relation is a construct: the construct left when the effect of one side enters the conditions of occurrence of the other side; it does not legislate, bears nothing, and does not pass final judgment on either party's own law on their behalf"; H12: "a little circle of two does not form a third bearer". ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 0, §5, writes the three senses of "direction" apart; what is used here are the third ("the place one heads toward and has not yet reached") and the second (Relation Theory's two directions, "read on one effect"). ↩︎
- Relation Theory H61. ↩︎
- Meaning Theory P3, Introduction. ↩︎
- Love Theory L1: "Love is seen from the subject's side; whether one loves is the affair of the one who loves"; L39: "my loving her does not add a duty for her either". ↩︎
- Relation Theory H23. Relation Theory's paper on commitment is Relation Theory Paper 3, Commitment. ↩︎
- Where one party's love is gone and he still stands on the commitment, he is read by Relation Theory H23, and is not judged to be a means; Paper 7 reads this. ↩︎
- Love Theory L39. ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 0, §4: "a couple looking at each other, an 'I love you', years of not parting, are all only clues"; L47: "From outside, only clues can be seen". ↩︎
- Relation Theory H24: "Commitment is entered as three things: what was promised, in word and deed; where one stands, and revising; the effects left". Relation Theory Paper 3, under H24: "What was said can be checked, and others can register it." ↩︎
- Relation Theory H28: dropping and falsity are first-person matters, and from outside only non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement are reported, together with traces. ↩︎
- Love Theory L36. ↩︎
- 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. ↩︎
- Conflict Treatise §2. ↩︎
- Conflict Treatise §2 divides two laws; carrying this to direction and love in marriage is an extension, this series' own undertaking. ↩︎
- Aesthetics Ray 11 §5. ↩︎
- Conflict Treatise §2. In the same place: "If it is later confirmed that the object type never obtained, one exits — one does not turn and judge the other." ↩︎
- Love Theory L40: "A long absence of quarrels is not evidence of cultivation." ↩︎
- Relation Theory H26; Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26, the third kind. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H23. Relation Theory Paper 3, under H30: staying has grounds in his own law, of two kinds: "One is commitment, explicit or implicit, which rests on where one stands." ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 0, §2: "Read by moments"; "Seen from the subject's side"; L1, L47. ↩︎
- Shijing [Book of Songs], "Bei feng" [Airs of Bei], "Ji gu" [Beating the Drum], from the Chinese Notes (chinesenotes.com) transcription, the fourth stanza cross-checked against the entry 死生契阔 in the Ministry of Education's Dictionary of Chinese Idioms; the last stanza from the same transcription. The fourth stanza: 死生契阔，与子成说。执子之手，与子偕老。 The last stanza: 于嗟阔兮，不我活兮；于嗟洵兮，不我信兮。 (English renderings this paper's own) ↩︎
- Zheng Xuan's commentary: 从军之士与其伍约：死也生也，相与处勤苦之中，我与子成相说爱之恩，志在相存救也; Zhu Xi, Shi jizhuan [Collected Commentaries on the Book of Songs]: 从役者念其室家，因言始为室家之时，期以死生契阔，不相忘弃，又相与执手，而期以偕老也 (English renderings this paper's own). Both as quoted in Wuliuqi, "What Feeling Does 'Qikuo' Speak Of?"; the original books have not been checked. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H23. ↩︎
- The Second Critique, Chapter Five §2: "It rests on where one stands"; "he can leave in a given matter, but the leaving goes on the books". Applying where one stands to where one promised is Relation Theory's transfer; see Relation Theory Paper 3, under H23. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H24. ↩︎
- F6, Appendix D, SAE Marriage Principles (a working demonstration, not evidentiary), the preamble and item 8(e). The preamble's sentence reads: "This is not a contract, not a rulebook, not a set of mutual constraints." ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, under H29. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H26. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, under H29. In the same place it cites Value Theory P2 V20 as corroboration at the value layer: "A value content already avowed does not vanish on the instant through sleep, anaesthesia, unconsciousness, or other temporary incapacity." ↩︎
- F6 §3.1(f). ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26: "You promised, so you're not allowed to leave"; "Leaving is betrayal": these hang a qualifying condition on the commitment and characterize exit on the other party's behalf, and slide in the direction of colonization; whether this has taken hold depends on whether the characterization has occupied, in him, the step at which he himself should judge this exit. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26: words that announce consequences: "once spoken they are already the second kind, without waiting to be carried out"; the third kind is sealing off exit itself, by whatever means; at the layer of basic rights it is a violation, and it also carries the direction of colonization. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H28. ↩︎
- The power and the recognition-based rights in endorsement are treated in their own right in SAE's Power Theory and Rights Theory series; this series only registers them, and does not unfold them. Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26: "This series does not read recognition-based rights (Paper 1, H11)". ↩︎
- Relation Theory H11: "the relation between persons and constructs is not; the provisions themselves are acknowledged but not judged". ↩︎
- Relation Theory H29; Relation Theory Paper 3, under H29. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H37: to attach a qualifying condition to an expectation, fixing for the other party what something means to him, is to slide in the direction of colonization, and whether that takes hold depends on the other party's later understanding and action. To read avowing on the other's behalf on the same structure is an extension, this series' own undertaking. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H56; Love Theory L29. ↩︎
- F6 §3.1(g). ↩︎
- Love Theory L38. ↩︎
- Love Theory L36. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H24. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H57: thoughts not expressed in word or deed do not enter the other party's conditions of occurrence. Love Theory L25 says of wavering, "so long as no commitment is broken, it carries no direction of colonization"; applying the same terms to a passing stirring of the heart is an extension, this series' own undertaking; H57 originally speaks of thoughts at exit, and carrying it to a passing stirring of the heart is likewise an extension. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H23. ↩︎
- Love Theory L37: "When each side operates at 15DD and each is exclusive, two one-way exclusivities have met; this has the same form as the mutuality Relation Theory speaks of, and is not obtained by exchange". ↩︎
- Relation Theory H38: "Mutuality is two one-way recognitions meeting; if they do not meet, each one's share is still there as before. Mutuality is not exchange". ↩︎
- Love Theory L37: "Love at 15DD does not demand exclusivity of her; whether she is exclusive can be decided only by her"; "using one's own love to set up a duty of exclusivity for her goes back to Paper 4". ↩︎
- Love Theory L30. ↩︎
- Aesthetics Ray 13 §6. Love Theory Paper 0, §5: "Exclusivity belongs to love, not to recognition." ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26, citing Economics P2 §5.1: "Exit costs can be high enough to be practically equivalent to lock-in"; in the same place: where the cost is raised until he actually cannot leave, it falls under the third kind. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26; Relation Theory H9. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26: in the third kind, "what is looked at is whether the consequences can be carried out and how great they are, not how afraid he is. Fear by itself does not show that exit has been sealed off." ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, under H30, divides staying, read party by party, into four cells, the first being that each side has grounds; in the same place: "Having grounds and being under a lock can coexist: the first cell does not prove that all channels are open." ↩︎
- Relation Theory H17, H18. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26; Relation Theory H19. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 1, under H8, reading colonization that has taken hold: "it looks at what maintains things at the time, not at their first origin; that is, at whether what was poured in has occupied the position that should have been made by the person's own law." Relation Theory H17: where an outside provenance holds the lock up, that point "is not exempted by this proposition". The last paragraph under H19: the external entry and the self entry are recorded side by side; "The two entries do not cancel each other"; the original place speaks of someone else forcing an agreement that seals off tomorrow; carrying it to a lock held up by an outside saying is an extension, this series' own undertaking. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H21: "from outside one sees the pronouncement, not that it is holding up this content's qualification". The original place speaks of the qualification of a content at the value layer; carrying it to the lock that holds exit is an extension, this series' own undertaking. ↩︎
- Value Theory P4 V54, as quoted in Relation Theory Paper 3, under H30: "Stability proves nothing either. A content that has not moved in ten years may be a position standing open with nothing he has wanted to change, or a position locked with nothing he can change." ↩︎
- Conflict Treatise §23. The original place speaks of my end, in a conflict, having completed a genuine revision or exit, so that the original incompatibility no longer holds; carrying it to love and exit in marriage is an extension, this series' own undertaking. In the same section, object dissolution is said to "neither ratify the past". ↩︎
- Conflict Treatise §2: exiting says that the case does not belong here; turning to judge says that the other end does not qualify. ↩︎
- On commitment and breach of faith, Relation Theory Paper 0, §11; on Gilbert, Relation Theory Paper 0, §7. ↩︎
- §24. Hastie's translation: "the union of two persons ... for life-long reciprocal possession ..." (end of sentence omitted). ↩︎
- §25. Hastie's translation: "This, however, is only possible under the one condition, that as the one person is acquired by the other as a res, that same person also equally acquires the other reciprocally, and thus regains and reestablishes the rational personality". ↩︎
- §26. Hastie's translation: "the relation of the married persons to each other is a relation of equality as regards the mutual possession of their persons, as well as of their goods". ↩︎
- §25. Hastie's translation: "if one of the married persons run away or enter into the possession of another, the other is entitled, at any time, and incontestably, to bring such a one back to the former relation, as if that person were a thing". ↩︎
- §162. Knox's translation: "its objective source lies in the free consent of the persons, especially in their consent to make themselves one person, to renounce their natural and individual personality to this unity of one with the other". ↩︎
- §163 and Remark. Knox's translation: "The ethical aspect of marriage consists in the parties' consciousness of this unity as their substantive aim, and so in their love, trust, and common sharing of their entire existence as individuals"; "inherently indissoluble"; "though marriage begins in contract, it is precisely a contract to transcend the standpoint of contract". ↩︎
- §164. Knox's translation: "the solemn declaration by the parties of their consent to enter the ethical bond of marriage, and its corresponding recognition and confirmation by their family and community, constitutes the formal completion and actuality of marriage"; "The knot is tied and made ethical only after this ceremony". ↩︎
- §161, Addition (the Additions in Knox's edition were compiled from students' lecture notes, and rank below the main text). Knox's translation: "it is no less so to think of it as only a civil contract, and even Kant does this"; "marriage is thus degraded to the level of a contract for reciprocal use". ↩︎
- Relation Theory H3, H12. ↩︎
- Second Treatise of Government §78: "Conjugal society is made by a voluntary compact between man and woman"; "mutual support and assistance, and a communion of interests too". ↩︎
- Same work, §81: "why this compact, where procreation and education are secured, and inheritance taken care for, may not be made determinable, either by consent, or at a certain time, or upon certain conditions, as well as any other voluntary compacts, there being no necessity in the nature of the thing, nor to the ends of it, that it should always be for life". ↩︎
- Same work, §82: "the wife has in many cases a liberty to separate from him, where natural right, or their contract allows it". ↩︎
- Relation Theory H27: "Commitment does not turn into a duty to the other party". ↩︎
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Søren Kierkegaard," §3.2: "this is the way in which romantic love endures"; "marriage embodies the ethical life insofar as it provides an environment in which two people can ... progressively reveal themselves to each other over a lifetime". §3.3.2: "For the Judge, such love may be made 'eternal' by being freely taken upon as one's duty". Either/Or itself has not been checked. ↩︎
- Love Theory Paper 4, §6. ↩︎
- Relation Theory Paper 0, §7, reporting Gilbert after the SEP entries "Collective Intentionality" §3.3 and "Shared Agency" §4. ↩︎
- Relation Theory H23, H25. ↩︎
References
All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version. Quotations are checked item by item in the accompanying audit table.
I · 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). SAE Conflict Treatise: How Subjecthood Is Not Swallowed by Conflict Itself [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22313628
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). The Beauty of Purpose (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 11) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22991142
Qin, H. (2026). The Beauty of Mutual Non Dubito (SAE Aesthetics, Ray 13) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23000910
Qin, H. (2026). SAE: The Second Critique [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23250387
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 2: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23541778
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 6: Asymmetry, Divergence and Ending [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545087
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 4: No Substitute [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627776
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 5: Without Waiting for You [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627779
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Love Theory Paper 6: That Moment [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627781
II · External works
Classical texts are given in simplified characters.
Kant, Immanuel. Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Rechtslehre (1797), §§24–26. English: The Philosophy of Law, trans. W. Hastie. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1887. (from an online transcription of Hastie's translation, titled The Science of Right; the German original has not been checked)
Hegel, G. W. F. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1820), §§161–164, §176. English: Hegel's Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952. (marxists.org transcription; the German original has not been checked)
Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government (1690), Second Treatise, ch. VII, §§78–82. (marxists.org transcription)
Kierkegaard, Søren. Enten – Eller (1843), Anden Deel: "Ægteskabets æsthetiske Gyldighed". (cited here from the SEP account; the original has not been checked)
Shijing 诗经, "Bei feng" 邶风, "Ji gu" 击鼓 [Beating the Drum]. (Chinese Notes transcription, the fourth stanza cross-checked against the entry 死生契阔 in the Ministry of Education's Dictionary of Chinese Idioms; the two readings of Zheng Xuan's commentary and Zhu Xi's Shi jizhuan as quoted by Wuliuqi; not checked against a standard annotated edition)
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)
III · Secondary literature
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. "Søren Kierkegaard", §3.2 The Ethical; §3.3.2 Love.
Wuliuqi 五柳七. (2025, September 11). 「契阔」谈的什么情？ [What Feeling Does "Qikuo" Speak Of?]. Beijing Wanbao [Beijing Evening News]; reprinted on chinawriter.com.cn.
Interfaces
- Main upstream: Relation Theory Paper 3 (H23 to H30; the sections under H23, H24, H26, H29 and H30); F6 (§1.3; §3.1(f)(g); Appendix D, the preamble and item 8(e)); Love Theory Paper 0 (§2, §4, §5, §7; L1, L36 to L40, L47).
- Also used: Relation Theory Paper 1 (H3, H8, H9, H11, H12), Paper 2 (H17 to H19, H21), Paper 4 (H37, H38), Paper 6 (H56, H57), Paper 7 (H61), Paper 0 (§7; §11); the Conflict Treatise (§2, §23); Meaning Theory P3 (Introduction); Ray 11 (§5); Ray 13 (§6); Love Theory L25, L29, L30, L35, and Paper 4 §6; Love Theory Paper 1 (note 10); the Second Critique (Chapter Five §2). Cited at second hand: Moral Law P6 §1 (by way of Love Theory Paper 1, note 10, and Relation Theory Paper 4); Value Theory P2 V20 (by way of Relation Theory Paper 3); Value Theory P4 V54 (by way of Relation Theory Paper 3); Economics P2 §5.1 (by way of Relation Theory Paper 3).
- This series: Paper 2 takes up the two branches of "we," "You are you, I am I," and Hegel's "one person"; Paper 4 takes up how the promise made anew each day is lived through the long years, moments of exchange and division of labor; Paper 5 takes up endorsement as a condition, and the child treated only as a condition; Paper 7 takes up breaking the commitment, one party's love being gone, the two steps of divorce, sealing off and exit, and exiting scope after marriage; Paper 0 lists the shared words together.