Self-as-an-End
SAE Marriage Theory · Paper 7

Staying and Leaving
去留

Han Qin (秦汉) · Independent Researcher · 2026
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.23819263 · Full PDF on Zenodo · CC BY 4.0
Abstract

This paper reads how a marriage that carries the 15DD direction ends: one party's or both parties' love ends; the commitment of marriage is broken; divorce; bereavement of a spouse. The kind of marriage that is kept up after the ending is not read. This series does not write on ending separately in each paper; ending is all in this paper.

The several endings can fall out of step. Where one party's love is gone and he still stands on the commitment, he is read by the commitment and not judged to be a means; that marriage already lacks one party's love, and from then on this series exits this case; this is not traced back, and this series does not turn and judge that party; whether love has ended is the affair of the one who loves, and for how the two go on from there no road is laid out. Where a person no longer stands where he promised, and lets the semblance of love hold up the other party's arrangements in his place, this is the structure of dropping; this is the leaver's reading of himself, and dropping is not reported from outside. Breaking the commitment of marriage is entered apart, and the direction of colonization falls only on dropping and falsity; breaking it does not first establish that love has moved away, and that a new love or an affair outside marriage has appeared does not on that account lead to concluding backward that the old love has ended. Leaving must be entered on the books, and there must also be an exit declaration the other party can clearly understand; the declaration is not conditional on the other party's agreement.

The qualification to exit cannot be locked; whether exit is within reach in running is checked separately, and what has been sealed off is not in this series. Whether one party's staying has grounds is read party by party, not divided by who knows what; where exit is within reach, all that is taken away is the lock. The freedom to exit is read on the side of not doubting that oneself is an end: what is asked is whether the relation has left conditions of running for one's own staying and leaving; no one's non dubito is certified or denied by the state of the channels. Divorce has two steps: the exit declaration is at the layer of the relation; the dissolution of the marriage within the endorsing institution belongs to the recognition component of the exit right, and is registered by that institution's rules. Whether the two steps are completed at the same time is entered apart; merely not having obtained dissolution within the institution does not by itself prove sealing off, nor does moving out of the shared home by itself prove that exit is within reach. One party's using a construct to bear down on the other is read as between person and person. Exit does not settle shared matters, nor does it turn into a demand that "you must come back"; where one party withdraws while the two are preparing together for someone who has not yet come, this is withdrawing one's own side, and the conditions and effects already left are entered as they stand. Saying for the other party, on leaving, "Nothing was lost in all these years" slides in the direction of colonization. In bereavement of a spouse, the endorsement side goes by the rules; love is seen from the subject's side; death is not the same as the ending of love; whether there is another side after death is not judged.

This paper interfaces with Hume, Milton, Hegel, Lu Xun and the Zhuangzi, and points back to the interfacing Relation Theory has already done with Aristotle on how friendship is broken off. This paper does not prove that one ought to stay, nor that one ought to leave; it does not prove that divorce is failure, nor that holding on is faithfulness.

Introduction

It is the twelfth year since Du Heng and An Ran married. Du Heng's father died six years ago, and from then on his mother lived with them; every Wednesday afternoon An Ran went with her to the hospital for physiotherapy, and she did this for five years. The winter before last, An Ran found that she no longer had any love for Du Heng. That year she went on with life as before: she went on taking his mother to the hospital, went on going back to the Du household at the holidays, went on doing what she had promised. One evening last winter she said to Du Heng: "I've thought about it for a year. I don't love you any more. I'm leaving."

At first Du Heng did not believe it, and said: "You're just tired." A few days later he said a few words in anger: "If you leave, this household is finished." "If you're leaving, I won't give an inch on anything to do with the flat." In February of the following year An Ran moved to her sister's. In June the two went to the registry and got divorced. On two Wednesdays in July An Ran still went to pick up his mother; later she worked it out with Du Heng that his sister would go instead.

More than one thing ended in that year, and not on the same day. An Ran's love, the winter before last; the dealings between the two wound down slowly in February, when she moved out; the marriage within that institution, in June; the matter of her going with his mother was handed over only in July; what she left in the Du household in those years is still there. What this paper asks is: how does a marriage that carries the 15DD direction end; at the ending, what carries the direction of colonization, and what does not; after a person has gone, what is still there?

What this paper reads. This paper reads four shapes that the ending of a marriage takes: one party's or both parties' love ends; the commitment of marriage is broken; divorce; bereavement of a spouse. The marriage this series reads has as its premise that both parties are headed in the 15DD direction, and under this premise it is made up of three things: love, each person's own commitment and institutional endorsement.1 What this paper reads is how such a marriage comes to its end. A marriage kept up after love is gone, and a marriage whose exit has been sealed off, are not in this series; Paper 1 has already said how they are read;2 this paper does not read them again, but reads only how a marriage walks out of scope, and at what place it walks out.

This series does not write a separate section on ending in each paper; ending is all in this paper. Love Theory divides ending into four kinds, which can fall out of step with one another: an appearance passes; my love ends; the shared dealings terminate; commitments and effects remain unsettled.3 Of these, an appearance passing concerns only that moment, and is not the ending of a marriage; marriage has, beyond the other three, one more: dissolution on the endorsement side. Du Heng and An Ran's year ran into all of these, each on a different day.

Shared words. "Exit" and "divorce" are used apart. Exit, as in Relation Theory, means withdrawing one's own side, no longer lending one's strength, no longer having dealings; it is an act, and presupposes no registered position.4 Divorce means the dissolution of the marriage within the institution that endorses it, by its rules, with its procedures.

"The exit right" has two components. Rights Theory establishes the exit right as a right straddling the basic and the recognition sides: the basic component is the self-determining floor of the subject's not being trapped; the recognition component is the exit channel the subject holds in some identifiable relational or institutional position.5 Relation Theory takes only the basic component; when this paper speaks of exit being sealed off, it means the basic component; when it speaks of the procedures of divorce, it means the recognition component, which is only registered.

"Knowing" has two senses. One is knowing of this relation: a relation does not require knowing; in an endorsed marriage both people know of this relation, so this sense always holds, and is not used to tell cases apart.6 The other is knowing that the other party can leave. This paper reads the latter sense.

"Able to leave" means that the person himself can actually exit these dealings, withdraw his own side; it does not mean having completed the procedures of divorce, nor having already moved out.7

Method. As in the earlier papers: 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. This paper reads only structure, does not judge who is right and who is wrong, and issues no ought: it does not say one should stay, nor that one should leave.

One couple, Du Heng and An Ran, runs through the whole paper. Both were within scope to begin with: the year she turned thirty-five, An Ran quit her job to study horticulture, and Du Heng did not stand in her way; he said it was her road; Du Heng later changed his line of work, and An Ran in turn acknowledged that this was his. This is a made-up example, used only to see structure. An Ran says that her love was gone by the winter before last; that is her own reading; from outside, a married couple's words and deeds are only clues, and do not certify whose love has ended, nor who is at which layer.

§1 The Ending of Love

MA39 This paper reads only how a marriage that carries the 15DD direction ends: one party's or both parties' love ends; the commitment of marriage is broken; divorce; bereavement of a spouse. The kind of marriage that is kept up after the ending is not read

Each of the four shapes breaks at one thing. The ending of love breaks at love, among the three things; breaking the commitment breaks at commitment; divorce breaks at endorsement, and can also take commitment and dealings with it; bereavement breaks at one party's being gone, with no one withdrawing anything.

The four can fall out of step. An Ran's love was gone by the winter before last; at that time the commitment was still there, the endorsement was still there too, and the dealings did not stop for a single day. Bring Love Theory's endings into marriage, take away an appearance passing, which concerns only that moment, and add the dissolution under the endorsing institution, and the ending of a marriage is several things each going its own way: the ending of love can come before the dealings terminate; the dissolution under the endorsing institution can come after the dealings terminate; commitments and the effects already left are still not settled after the dissolution under the endorsing institution.8 So this paper does not ask "On what day did this marriage end?"; it asks where each one breaks, and what is still there after it has broken.

The kind of marriage that is kept up after the ending is not read. Where not a share of love is left between the two, whether the two still need this marriage or keep it up only by their own commitments, Paper 1 reads it as having exited this series' scope: it looks at structure, does not read minds, does not criticize either, and does not judge who is a means; where exit has been sealed off, Paper 1 also reads it as not in this series.9 What this paper reads are the steps by which a marriage walks out of the marriage this series reads; the kind that remains once it has walked out is not read, nor is it said not to be a marriage.

MA40 Where one party's love is gone and he still stands on the commitment, he is read by the commitment and not judged to be a means; that marriage already lacks one party's love, and from then on this series exits this case; this is not traced back, and this series does not turn and judge that party. Whether love has ended is the affair of the one who loves. For how the two go on from there, this proposition lays out no road

Where One Still Stands on the Commitment

An Ran's year is read by the commitment. Her love was gone; what she had promised she went on doing: taking his mother to the hospital, going back to the Du household at New Year, not one household task left undone. 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.10 That year she stood where she promised, and where she stood was her own.

So she is not judged to be a means. This series does not infer from love's being gone that anyone is a means: where not a share of love is left between the two, Paper 1 too says only that the marriage has exited scope, and does not judge who is a means;11 where one party's love is gone, still less is it inferred. What can be read here is only what An Ran's staying rested on. Where a person's staying in a stretch of dealings has grounds in his own law, the grounds are of two kinds: one is commitment, resting on where one stands; the other is choosing for oneself, each time, to stay.12 By An Ran's own later account, that year belongs to the first kind: she stayed on the strength of what she had promised. This reading answers what her staying rested on, and only her end can confirm it.

Yet that marriage already lacks one party's love. The marriage this series reads must have, among the three things, the love between the two; where one party's is lacking, the object no longer obtains. There this series exits this case.

Not Traced Back, No Turning to Judge

Exiting 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.13 An Ran's love was gone by the winter before last; the ten years before are read as the years before, and it is not said backward, because love was later gone, that it was not there in those ten years either.

Nor does exiting turn and judge that party. In setting up its two layers, the Conflict Treatise says: exiting says that this case does not belong here; turning to judge says that 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."14 That this series no longer reads this marriage does not mean that what An Ran did that year was wrong, nor that from then on she is at some particular layer.

Whether Love Has Ended Is the Affair of the One Who Loves

Love is seen from the subject's side: whether one loves is the affair of the one who loves.15 An Ran says her love was gone by the winter before last; this is her own reading, and a fallible look back after the fact; from outside it can be neither certified nor refuted.

Du Heng's "You're just tired" speaks for her about her own love. He can disbelieve, can ask, can say his expectation out loud; saying an expectation out loud is a form of questioning.16 But whether her love has ended is not his to judge for her; if this sentence is used to press down her own step of understanding herself, it slides in the direction of colonization; whether it took hold is seen in her afterward.

The reverse holds too. Whether Du Heng's love is still there, only he himself knows; An Ran cannot, because her own is gone, say that his has long been gone too.

No Road Laid Out

Where one party's love is gone, for how the two go on from there this proposition lays out no road. Love is read by moments, and a new moment may also come; the two may also choose again together, forming a new arrangement, or each revise; that reading is in Paper 4.17 They may also part, like Du Heng and An Ran. This paper does not say which road is right.

§2 Breaking the Commitment

MA41 Where a person no longer stands where he promised, and lets the semblance of love hold up the other party's arrangements in his place, this is read as the structure of dropping; this is the leaver's reading of himself: what is looked at is the declaration and the structural effect of that promise on the other party, and he does not excuse himself by whether he owned the change in his heart; dropping is not reported from outside. Breaking the commitment of marriage is entered apart: dropping, falsity, non-fulfillment, obstruction, joint revision of the agreement; the direction of colonization falls only on dropping and falsity, and from outside only non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement are reported, together with traces. Breaking it does not first establish that love has moved away, nor, merely because a new love or an affair outside marriage has appeared, conclude backward that the old love has ended. Leaving must be entered on the books, and there must also be an exit declaration the other party can clearly understand; entering on the books, the declaration and the effects already left are entered apart, and the declaration is not conditional on the other party's agreeing to the exit

The Semblance Holds Things Up in His Place

Take another way of leaving. An Ran had already decided, the winter before last, to leave, yet said nothing. Not long after his mother moved in six years ago, she had said to Du Heng: "Mum will live here with us, and I'll go with her to physiotherapy." That year she went on taking his mother to the hospital every Wednesday; when Du Heng talked about plans for the next few years, she did not take it up, nor did she say it plainly. Du Heng arranged what followed by that promise of hers from years before: he turned down his employer's offer of a transfer to another city, and renewed his mother's physiotherapy for another year.

Love Theory, reading vows and leaving, set up this structure: once a promise has been spoken, it acts on the other party in the shape of something currently in force, and goes on signifying to her "I stand here"; after the promise has gone empty, no one stands behind what this sentence signifies, yet it goes on pouring "he is still there" into her arrangements as a premise, heading in the direction of keeping her from understanding anew and arranging anew in light of the change that has happened.18 Love Theory also registers this place among its remainders: when love is gone and one goes on giving the acts of love as before, what effect this has on her, and whether it carries a direction; where a person no longer stands where he promised, and lets that semblance hold up her arrangements in his place, it is read as the structure of dropping; "the other cases this series does not judge."19

In marriage this structure presses heavily. The promise has been laid on layer by layer over many years; what the other party has arranged by it is also many years of days. What the semblance holds up in a person's place can be not one matter but a whole stretch of life.

This has to be kept apart from the last proposition. The An Ran of §1 has no love left, still stands where she promised, is read by the commitment, and is not dropping. The An Ran here no longer stands there, and lets the semblance hold things up in her place. From outside the two can look exactly alike: life going on as before, his mother taken to the hospital as before. What tells them apart lies only at her end.

Going on with the look of love after love is gone is not all read as dropping. Only the kind in which a person no longer stands where he promised, and lets that semblance hold up the other party's arrangements in his place, is the structure read here; the others this series does not judge.

The Leaver's Reading of Himself

Dropping and falsity are first-person matters.20 This proposition is read as the leaver's reading of herself: what she reads is her declaration and the structural effect of that promise on him, and she does not excuse herself by whether she owned the change in her heart.21 Whether one has owned the change in one's heart can be hard to tell, not necessarily clear even to the person herself; but that the promise goes on acting on him is something that can be seen.

Dropping is not reported from outside. Du Heng's friend sees that An Ran has left and says, "She deceived you for a whole year": this sentence reports dropping from outside, and speaks of something only her end can know. What can be registered from outside is non-fulfillment: what she had promised was later not done; whether there is a declaration to be found, what that promise left behind, together with traces.22

Breaking the Commitment Is Entered Apart

Breaking the commitment of marriage is entered apart: dropping, falsity, non-fulfillment, obstruction, joint revision of the agreement. The direction of colonization falls only on dropping and falsity; leaving with the books kept, non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement carry none.23 Dropping is quietly setting it down when it suits, with no account kept; falsity is never having stood there at the time of promising.24

Take yet another case: in some year, it is Du Heng who first has someone else.

This breaks the exclusivity that was promised. Which kind it falls under has to be checked apart. What can be seen from outside is that he did not do what he promised, together with traces; whether he had long since quietly set that promise down, whether he never stood there in the first place, or whether he still stands there and did not manage it this time, all lies with him.25 From outside only non-fulfillment is reported.

Nor does breaking it first establish that love has moved away. One instance of breaking it does not by itself prove that his love for An Ran is gone; that a new love has appeared does not on that account lead to concluding backward that the old one has ended.26 Love at the layer of recognizing her as an end too is persistently exclusive; operation may be interrupted, and when it is, it is entered separately by the operation of that occasion; if the moments of love alternate between two people, it is entered as wavering.27 Whether his love for An Ran has ended is still his own affair. Nor is every affair outside marriage love; whether it is a love, this proposition does not judge.

Entering on the Books, the Declaration and the Effects Left

Back to the way An Ran actually left: she thought about it for a year, and then she said it.

Leaving must be entered on the books. That matter is entered in her own books, and is not treated as though she had never stood there; keeping the books means being able to say it plainly oneself, not reporting to anyone.28 When An Ran says "I've thought about it for a year," what she is saying is the account on her side: that year she stood there, and later she no longer did.

There must also be an exit declaration the other party can clearly understand. The promise was made to him, so leaving must also let him know that things have changed. The declaration need not be said in so many words, but it must be something he can clearly understand. Du Heng understood An Ran's "I don't love you any more; I'm leaving"; his disbelief, his anger, his saying "You're just tired": none of this makes the declaration fail. Being understandable does not require that he agree to the exit, nor is his refusing to admit it taken as counter-evidence.29

The three are entered apart. That she has entered it on the books does not mean he knows; that she has told him does not finish entering the books for her; with both done, the effects those years left with him are still there: the days he arranged by her promise, the mortgage the two were paying off together, his mother's trip every Wednesday.30 His knowing that she is leaving, his agreeing to her leaving and her having owned the change are three things.31

§3 Exit and Divorce

MA42 The qualification to exit cannot be locked, and only the basic component of the exit right is read; whether exit is within reach in running is checked separately, and what has been sealed off is not in this series. Whether one party's staying has grounds in his own law is read party by party; only his end can confirm it, and it is not divided by who knows what. Where exit is within reach, all that is taken away is the lock; cost, stalling and habit that has been surreptitiously swapped may still be what his staying rests on. Where one knows that the other party can leave, and leaving is also a practically available option, staying is no longer fixed solely by there being no way out; this still does not prove the grounds of this staying. The freedom to exit is read on the side of not doubting that oneself is an end: what is asked is whether the relation has left conditions of running for one's own staying and leaving and for choosing again; it is not inferred from the channels' being sealed that the person no longer recognizes himself as an end, nor certified from the channels' being within reach that he has avowed staying or trust. For a person who cannot exit, his position is not taken away from outside; what sealing off takes away is this side's room in running. The side of the other's also being an end is read for each, and is not cancelled automatically because exit has been obstructed. From outside only checkable words and deeds, conditions and clues are read, and non dubito is not certified on that basis

Exit in the Marriage Principles

The SAE Marriage Principles in the appendix to How Is Institution Possible (Foundational Paper 6; cited as F6) write of exit in item 7: "The right to exit a marriage is absolute." It goes on: "Either party may end the relationship at any time. This requires no 'sufficiently good reason,' no consent from the other, no approval from the outside world." Below are listed three reasons: (a) "A relationship maintained by 'cannot leave' is not co-construction; it is captivity"; (b) "Knowing the other can leave at any time but chooses to stay—this carries infinitely more meaning than 'the other cannot leave, so they stay'"; (c) "Freedom to exit is the precondition for non dubito. If you cannot leave, you cannot truly freely choose to trust—because your trust is not a choice but the absence of alternatives."32 That appendix is a working demonstration, not evidentiary; this paper reads the principles it contains, and where they do not accord with Relation Theory as published, Relation Theory governs.

So "absolute" is read only on the basic component of the exit right: a person can leave. "No approval from the outside world" is also read on the basic component: that a person can leave is a layer that does not wait on that institution's approval; how a marriage is dissolved within the institution is the recognition component, read in the next proposition. "Infinitely more meaning" in (b) is a sentence of quantity; this paper does not take that layer, only its structure.

The Layer of Qualification and the Layer of Running

Commitment cannot lock tomorrow: that it cannot lock lies in the layer of qualification, and is necessary; locking lies in the layer of running, and is possible; where tomorrow is locked in running, what is violated is the exit right, which is a person's basic right.33 The layer of qualification Meaning Theory writes as: "the structural positions of avowal, revision and exit still belong to that bearer. Running can be obstructed; the position is not taken away from outside."34 Whether a person can leave a marriage is not in question at the layer of qualification; what has to be checked is whether it is within reach in running. What has been sealed off Paper 1 has already read: it is not in this series.

Party by Party, Not Divided by Who Knows What

Du Heng and An Ran both stayed twelve years in this marriage; in the last of those years An Ran's love was already gone, and she was still there. A stretch of dealings maintained over time is called stability, and the word carries no evaluation; it is read party by party: the question is not whether this marriage has grounds, but, for each side, whether his staying in these dealings has grounds in his own law.35 Du Heng's grounds only his end can confirm; An Ran's, only hers.

The two ends can fall into different cells: each side has grounds; only one side has grounds, while the other stays only by lock, cost, stalling or habit that has been surreptitiously swapped; both sides are maintained only by conditions; the material is insufficient and no judgment can be made. Having grounds and being under a lock can coexist.36 These four cells are divided by whether each side has grounds, not by who knows what.37

All That Is Taken Away Is the Lock

Where exit is within reach, all that is taken away is the lock. A person is able to leave in running, and if he stays, he may still stay only by other conditions: the cost of leaving is too high, it is put off again and again, or it has been surreptitiously swapped within habit. The side maintained only by such conditions is where structural instability falls.38 If, in that last year, An Ran had not stood where she promised, but staying only because moving out was too hard and she kept thinking she would see after New Year, she would have been able to leave, while her staying rested only on cost and stalling. Being able to leave does not certify the grounds of staying.

Knowing That the Other Party Can Leave

Item 7(b) of the appendix speaks of another layer: knowing that the other can leave at any time and choosing to stay. This paper reads it so: where exit is within reach, and leaving is also a practically available option, staying is no longer fixed solely by there being no way out. Du Heng always knew An Ran could leave, and An Ran knew it too.

Yet this still does not prove the grounds of this staying. Knowing that the other party can leave is the second sense of "knowing"; the four cells are not divided by who knows what, and which side knows what is stated case by case.39 Both know that the other can leave; the grounds of each one's staying are still each at their own end.

Not Doubting That Oneself Is an End

(c) says that the freedom to exit is the precondition for non dubito. Non dubito has two sides: not doubting that oneself is an end, and not doubting that the other is an end.40 This proposition is read on one's own side: exit being within reach gives staying and leaving, and choosing again, a practically available option. What is asked here is whether a relation has left these conditions of running for a person's own staying and leaving, and for choosing again; on this basis, the grounds of the person's avowing staying and trust are neither certified nor denied.

This reading has two bounds. One: it is not inferred from the channels' being sealed that the person no longer recognizes himself as an end. For a person who cannot exit, his position is not taken away from outside;41 what sealing off takes away is this side's room in running, not that side of the person himself. The other: nor is it certified from the channels' being within reach that he has avowed staying or trust. That An Ran is able to leave does not prove that her trust over those twelve years was her own; that needs her end.

The side of not doubting that the other is an end is read for each, and is not cancelled automatically because one party's exit has been obstructed.

From outside, what can be read is only checkable words and deeds, conditions and clues: whose hands the papers are in, whose hands the money is in, whether contact with the outside has been cut. From these, no one's non dubito is certified.

MA43 The exit declaration lets the other party clearly understand that the person is exiting, and is at the layer of the relation; the dissolution of the marriage within the endorsing institution, with its public procedure, belongs to the recognition component of the exit right, and is registered by that institution's rules. Whether the two steps are completed at the same time is entered apart. Merely not having obtained dissolution within the institution does not by itself prove that the basic component of the exit right has been sealed off; nor does moving out of the shared home by itself prove that exit is already within reach. "Able to leave" means that the person himself can actually exit these dealings, withdraw his own side, and is checked by Relation Theory. A construct's power raising the cost of exit is acknowledged but not judged; raised until a person actually cannot leave, it is sealing off. One party's using a construct to bear down on the other is read as between person and person: raising the other party's cost of exit outward carries the direction of colonization; sealing off the other party's exit itself is, at the layer of basic rights, a violation besides, and that marriage too exits this series

Two Steps

An Ran's leaving has two steps. That evening last winter she told Du Heng, and Du Heng understood: this is the exit declaration, at the layer of the relation, letting the other party clearly understand that the person is exiting.42 This June the two completed the procedure at the registry: this is the dissolution of the marriage within the endorsing institution, with its public procedure; it belongs to the recognition component of the exit right, and is registered by that institution's rules.43

Whether the two steps are completed at the same time is entered apart. An Ran's two steps were more than half a year apart. There are also cases where one step does not reach the other: one person has made it clear to the other, yet the marriage is still on that institution's register; or the procedure is done, and not one of the effects the promise left has been settled. Paper 1 says registration is not read as the words and deeds of commitment; the procedure of divorce is likewise not read as an exit declaration,44 and the declaration cannot stand in for the procedure either.

The Procedure and Being Able to Leave

Merely not having obtained dissolution within the institution does not by itself prove that the basic component has been sealed off. At first Du Heng refused to go to the registry, and that institution also set a waiting period. These two drew out the procedure, but did not make An Ran unable to leave: she had already moved out, no longer lent her strength, no longer had dealings, and had withdrawn her own side. The stretch on the procedural side is registered by that institution's rules.

Moving out of the shared home does not by itself prove that exit is already within reach either. Suppose An Ran moved to her sister's, but her papers were in Du Heng's hands, she could not draw out a cent of her money, and every contact with the outside had to go through him: she herself would no longer be in that home, yet the way out of these dealings might not be passable. Whether she can leave is looked at by these, and checked by Relation Theory.45

The Construct's Cost

A construct's power can raise the cost of exit: the years of litigation, how property is divided, how the village sees the one who leaves. These are that institution's rules and the way those around look on, acknowledged but not judged here. Raised until a person actually cannot leave, it is sealing off, and falls under the third kind in Relation Theory;46 Paper 1 has read that such a marriage is not in this series; what is read is the structure that marriage has settled into between the two, not that institution's rules.

Using a Construct to Bear Down on the Other

One party's using a construct to bear down on the other is read as between person and person. Du Heng's "If you're leaving, I won't give an inch on anything to do with the flat" has to be looked at for what it is used to do. His claiming his own share by that institution's rules is a matter on his own side; hanging it on whether she leaves, using it to set a penalty on her leaving, is outward: directed at her, raising her cost of leaving, it carries the direction of colonization.47 What is judged is what this sentence is used to do, not its syntax.

The other sentence, "If you leave, this household is finished," characterizes this exit for her: it hangs the end of a household on her leaving. This sentence 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.48

If he went further, holding back her papers and cutting off her contact with the outside so that she actually could not leave, that would be sealing off her exit itself, by whatever means, which at the layer of basic rights is a violation, and also carries the direction of colonization;49 by Paper 1, that marriage too would exit this series.

§4 After Leaving

MA44 Exit does not settle the accounts: shared child-rearing and shared matters are not settled by unilateral exit; saying for the other party, on leaving, "Nothing was lost in all these years" slides in the direction of colonization

Not Settled

An Ran has gone, and some things do not go with her. The Conflict Treatise has written: departure can happen, yet departure does not by itself close those accounts; written this way it holds "intimate relations, shared child-rearing, organizational role and public responsibility."50 Relation Theory, in its paper on ending, writes this as a proposition: unilateral exit does not settle the accounts.51

Shared matters. His mother's Wednesday trip is a matter shared by An Ran and Du Heng, and also a stretch of dealings between An Ran and his mother, entered on separate accounts, pair by pair.52 After An Ran moves out, this share is not settled because she has moved out. Not being settled does not turn into a demand that "you must come back" either:53 she may stop going; how the trip goes from then on is a matter to be handed over and talked through. How she hands it over can be read for direction. She tells Du Heng and his sister early, explains clearly the doctor, the times and his mother's habits, and leaves it to them to decide how to carry on taking her: leaving shared matters room for natural development when one exits points in the direction of cultivation. If she writes out who goes each week from then on, what time to arrive, at which entrance to wait, and hands it to them to follow, with no changes allowed, that fixes their future for them once and for all, and slides in the direction of colonization; if on leaving she takes his mother's hospital card with her and does not return it, so that their step of carrying on is out of reach, that is creating difficulties, and carries the direction of colonization.54 What exactly counts as over-arranging has to be judged in the situation at the time; this paper speaks only of direction.

Shared child-rearing is also a shared matter. Where the two have children, shared child-rearing after parting is not settled by unilateral exit; its side between husband and wife is read in Paper 6.

Preparing together for someone who has not yet come is also a matter the two share. Where one party withdraws while the preparing is under way, this is withdrawing one's own side, and does not carry the direction of colonization: having avowed it, one can still change one's mind; only while that way is there is this still something the two do together; once one party no longer avows it, the thing the two do together no longer obtains.55 Where the marriage ends during the preparing, it is read the same way. Withdrawing does not settle what has already been done: those years of preparing were real; the conditions and effects left are entered as they stand, are not gone because of the withdrawal, and do not lead to retroactively judging that the earlier preparation never occurred;56 not being settled does not turn into a demand that "you must come back" either.

The conditions and effects that still exist. What continues after parting can be the conditions and effects that still exist.57 In these years An Ran learned, when things are hard, to stop for a moment first, and only then go on; she got that from Du Heng, and once she avowed it herself, it is hers; the years of days Du Heng arranged by her promise are still real too. Exit does not delete recognition: An Ran's no longer having dealings coexists with her recognizing that Du Heng is a person.58 A relation may be terminated and a channel closed, but one cannot on that account pass final judgment on this person.59 An Ran cannot write Du Heng down as "just that kind of person," and Du Heng cannot write An Ran down as "someone who walks out whenever she likes."

Saying for the Other Party That Nothing Was Lost

What is said on leaving can also be read for direction. If, on leaving, An Ran said, "In all these years, nobody lost anything," this sentence would say for Du Heng what this exit amounts to, heading for his own step of understanding so as to fill it in first; it slides in the direction of colonization.60 Saying one's own plans and reasons, "I don't love you any more; I'm leaving," is telling; he can still think it through himself.

The reverse holds too. If Du Heng said, "Go, then; you didn't come off badly with me all these years," that would be deciding for An Ran what she got from him, and would likewise slide in the direction of colonization.

Loving someone else after a love has ended is succession, not wavering; one cannot, merely because a new love has appeared, conclude backward that the old love had already ended.61 If An Ran later loves someone else, it is not said backward that her share toward Du Heng in those years never existed.

§5 Bereavement

MA45 Bereavement of a spouse: how things stand on the endorsement side goes by that institution's rules, acknowledged but not judged; love is seen from the subject's side, and death is not the same as the ending of love; whether there is another side after death is not judged

Du Heng's father died six years ago. After his mother moved into her son's home, she kept her husband's reading glasses in the drawer by her bed; every year at Qingming she goes to the cemetery and talks for a while to the headstone, about her legs, about the weather, about things at home.

Bereavement is not exit. No one withdraws his own side, and no one has anything to declare; one party is gone.

How things stand on the endorsement side goes by that institution's rules. In many institutions, when one party dies the marriage is thereby dissolved; the surviving party becomes a widow or widower, may later remarry, and how property is inherited is all set by rules. These are acknowledged but not judged.

Love is seen from the subject's side. When the one loved is gone, the remembered one is still there; death is not the same as the ending of love.62 Whether Du Heng's mother's love has ended is her own affair; she may go on loving all along, or may find in some year that the love has faded, or changed its shape; from outside, a pair of reading glasses kept in a drawer, a once-a-year talk, are only clues. If she later loves someone else, it is likewise not said backward that her share in those years did not exist; that a new love has appeared does not on that account lead to concluding backward that the old one has ended;63 how that share stands is still her own affair.

Whether there is another side after death is not judged. Writing of the relation with the dead, Relation Theory says: "Whether there is another side after death, and what it is like, this series does not judge; to say that nothing happens any more where he is would already be a judgment, so it does not say that either"; what this series reads is the construct he left entering the conditions of occurrence of the living.64 She talks to the headstone; whether the other side can hear, this paper does not say; what can be read is how what he left, a pair of glasses, decades of habits, acts in the days of her life that follow; that is a one-way relation, and no response is required of the dead.

What he left also includes things not settled. Years ago the two had agreed to go back and see his hometown; this promise is still there with her; later she went alone, and that was her own step: it does not make the promise good on his behalf, nor is it something she owed him.65

§6 Interfacing with Tradition

Several have asked about ending, one after another. For each, this paper writes faithfully what he sees and why he looks, where he presses on this paper, where they meet and where they part; other traditions appear in their own words. When friendship may be broken off, as Aristotle discusses it, Relation Theory has already interfaced: he discusses the timing of breaking it off by the ground of the friendship, while this series does not require that exit have reasons, and issues no ought; that place is pointed back to here, and only the layer of marriage is picked up.66

Necessity and friendship (Hume). In "Of Polygamy and Divorces," Hume weighs the advantages and disadvantages of divorce point by point, and concludes: "The exclusion of polygamy and divorces sufficiently recommends our present EUROPEAN practice with regard to marriage".67 He first sets out the reasons that those who argue for voluntary divorce may employ,68 one of which is: where love has turned into hatred within a union, there is nothing crueller than holding it together by force.69 Then he says that there are three unanswerable objections to voluntary divorce.70 Children: what is to become of the children after the parents separate?71 Necessity: the human heart naturally bows to necessity, and soon ceases to want a thing once it appears altogether impossible; friendship, so quiet an affection, rather grows better under constraint, especially where interest or necessity binds two people together.72 Separate interests: nothing is more dangerous than to bind two people so closely in all their interests and concerns without making the union entire and complete; even the least possibility of a separate interest becomes a source of endless quarrels and suspicions.73 He looks in order to show that the European practice of his time, excluding polygamy and divorce, holds up. What he sees: a situation with no way out changes the way people stay; in marriage there are children to be raised together. He presses on this paper at two points. First, if the human heart bows to necessity, and friendship grows under constraint, then exit's being locked does not make a marriage worse, but helps it grow; item 7(a) of the appendix says that what is maintained by being unable to leave is captivity, and stands directly opposed to him. Second, if the least possibility of a separate interest gives rise to suspicion, then knowing that the other can leave is not the gap (b) speaks of, but the source of suspicion. They meet in: to preserve by force a union that has already come apart is cruel; this argument and this paper shed light on each other; it is an argument he drafts for the side that favors divorce, and it is not taken here as Hume's own final position. What becomes of the children after separation he uses against divorce; this paper reads it as exit not settling shared child-rearing (MA44), and on the point that the children are still there, the two run the same way. They part at three points. First, he argues from the benefit a practice brings to the family and to society; this paper reads only structure, and does not argue from good and bad, peace or stability. Second, the necessity he speaks of is the law's not permitting divorce; this paper reads it as there being no procedure of dissolution in the recognition component, which does not by itself prove that exit has been sealed off (MA43); nor does the psychological effect he estimates from it, the human heart bowing to necessity, hold automatically in each person concerned by virtue of the state of the law. If a person stays because of this, and his staying rests only on the feeling of being unable to leave and the cost of leaving, this paper reads it as the side that stays only by conditions, which is structural instability; where the cost is raised until he actually cannot leave, it is sealing off, and at the layer of basic rights a violation (MA42, MA43). The friendship he speaks of as growing under constraint this paper neither certifies nor denies from outside: whether a person's staying has grounds, only his end can confirm, and having grounds and being under a lock can coexist;74 yet being under a lock is still a violation, on another line, and does not cease to count because he has grounds. Third, separate interests: this paper has as its premise that you are you and I am I, and each one's share is in each one's own place to begin with (Paper 2); nor does it say that knowing the other can leave by itself gives rise to trust; it says only that staying is no longer fixed solely by there being no way out (MA42).

An unfit marriage (Milton). Milton's The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce argues for a way out of an unfit marriage; its very title speaks of restoring divorce to both sexes "From the Bondage of Canon Law".75 He argues from the end of marriage: in God's intention, a fit and happy conversation is the chief and noblest end of marriage; an indisposition, unfitness or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature that cannot be changed, which hinders, and is ever likely to hinder, the main benefits of married society, solace and peace, is a greater reason for divorce than natural frigidity, especially where there are no children and both consent; a marriage that lacks its most honest end can be no marriage.76 He also speaks of those who have become the bondmen of an unlucky and helpless marriage.77 He writes to win a way out for those trapped in unfit marriages, arguing from scripture and from the end of marriage, against the canon law of his day. What he sees: the one thing that makes a marriage what it is can be gone while the legal tie remains; those trapped inside are bound. He presses on this paper: if a marriage whose end is lacking does not count as a marriage, then this paper's "exiting scope" is too light, and a marriage without love between the two ought to be said to be no longer a marriage; if divorce requires a reason such as unfitness, then exit must first have reasons. The thesis says "especially" where there are no children and both consent, and does not write the consent of both as a necessary condition of all divorce; in Book II, chapter 21 of the same work he further says that the absolute and final prevention of divorce cannot rest with any secular power against the will and consent of both parties, or of the husband alone.78 So the other party's consent is not taken here as the line between him and this paper. They meet in: what makes a marriage the kind this series reads can be gone before the legal tie is (MA40); a marriage trapped shut is bound (MA42). They part at three points. First, he says that a marriage lacking its end "can be no mariage"; this paper says only that this series no longer reads it, not that it is not a marriage. Second, he looks for reasons for divorce; this paper reads exit: the basic component requires no reason, and a person can leave; for what reasons an institution permits dissolution is the recognition component, registered by that institution's rules (MA43). Third, his unilateral position, in that chapter, is stated explicitly as the husband's; in this paper the qualification to exit and the declaration are entered party by party, and are not conditional on a spouse's consent (MA41).

The ethical authority of a third party (Hegel). Paper 1 has read Hegel's §§161 to 164, and left one place there, divorce, for this paper. §176: marriage is only the immediate ethical Idea, and so has its objective actuality only in the inwardness of subjective feeling and disposition; this is the fundamental contingency of marriage in the world. No one can be compelled to marry; on the other hand, once the dispositions and actions of the two have become hostile and contrary, no merely legal or positive bond can hold them together. Yet the ethical authority of a third party is needed to uphold the right of marriage against the mere whim of hostile dispositions, against a passing mood; this authority must tell these apart from the total estrangement of the two, and may not permit divorce until it is satisfied that the estrangement is total.79 The Addition says: marriage ought to be indissoluble, but here again we can only stop at this "ought"; since marriage is an ethical institution, it cannot be dissolved at will, but only by an ethical authority, the church or the law court; if the two are completely estranged, for instance owing to adultery, even the ecclesiastical authority must permit divorce.80 He looks in order to find a place between the contingency of marriage and its ethical substance. What he sees: no legal tie can bind two people whose dispositions have become hostile; passing words said in anger are not total estrangement. He presses on this paper: if divorce has to wait for a third party to confirm that the estrangement is total, then a person's exit hangs on another's judgment of what is in his heart; leaving must first pass through an authority's determination of whether he loves, whether he is estranged. The adultery cited in the Addition gives this determination a kind of evidence: whether leaving stands up depends on whether there is such a fact, able to bear a third party's checking. They meet in: a legal tie cannot bind people, which runs the same way as the qualification to exit's not being lockable (MA42); passing words said in anger, a passing mood, are not an ending, which runs the same way as falling back's not overturning the direction; Du Heng's few words said in anger do not show that his love is gone either. They part at three points. First, whether the estrangement is total, whether love has ended, is the affair of the one who loves; this paper hands it to no third party to determine (MA40). Second, he has dissolution made only by an ethical authority; this paper keeps the two steps apart: that a person can leave is a layer that needs no one's permission; dissolution within the institution belongs to the recognition component, is registered by that institution's rules, and is acknowledged but not judged (MA43). Third, this paper's exit declaration is not conditional on the other party's consent, nor on a third party's determination; adultery is entered apart, under breaking the commitment, and is used neither to determine for anyone that love has moved away, nor that the estrangement is total (MA41). What he speaks of are the conditions under which that institution permits dissolution; this paper only registers them, and does not read those conditions as how things already stand on the parties' own side.

After she leaves (Lu Xun). In 1923, at the Beijing Women's Higher Normal School, Lu Xun gave the lecture "What Happens After Nora Leaves?", asking about the woman in Ibsen's play who shuts the door and walks out: what happens after she has gone. He says: "But reasoning from the way things are, Nora really has perhaps only two roads: either she falls, or she comes back."81 The reason is money: "So for Nora's sake, money, or, to put it more elegantly, economics, is what matters most." "Freedom certainly cannot be bought with money, but it can be sold for money." From this he argues: "First, at home there should first be an equal distribution between men and women; second, in society men and women should gain equal power."82 He also says: "The most painful thing in life is to wake from a dream and find no road to take."83 He speaks in order to make clear to a group of women students what one has to rely on, after walking out, in order to keep walking. What he sees: going out of the door is not the same as being able to leave; the position of exit is there, and yet the road can be out of reach. He presses on this paper: if one who walks out has no money and in the end can only come back, then the sentence that the qualification to exit cannot be locked is empty; what use is the position's being there? They meet in: this is exactly the layer of running this paper has to check. At the layer of qualification nothing locks, yet in running it can be made out of reach; the cost of exit can be so high as to be practically equivalent to locking (MA42, MA43). That moving out of the shared home does not by itself prove that exit is within reach speaks of exactly the door Nora shut behind her. They part at two points. First, he writes a prescription, economic rights, equality at home and in society; this paper reads only structure, does not discuss what institutions ought to be, and issues no ought. Second, "either she falls, or she comes back" is his reasoning from the way things are; this paper does not predict the road of one who has left. Coming back does not by itself prove that she could not leave; nor does it by itself prove that it was her own step; that needs her end.

Drumming on a basin and singing (the Zhuangzi). The chapter "Perfect Happiness" in the Zhuangzi: Zhuangzi's wife died, and Huizi went to offer condolences; Zhuangzi was sitting with his legs sprawled out, drumming on a basin and singing. Huizi said: "You lived with her, she raised your children and grew old; not weeping at her death would be enough, but drumming on a basin and singing as well: isn't that going too far?" Zhuangzi said: "Not so. When she first died, how could I alone not be stricken? But I looked back to her beginning: originally there was no life; not only no life, originally no form; not only no form, originally no qi." From nothing to qi, form and life, and now changed again into death: "this is like the four seasons going round, spring, autumn, winter, summer"; "she now lies at rest in the great chamber, and if I followed after her wailing, I would take myself not to understand fate, and so I stopped."84 He looks in order to put death back into the transformations of qi and form, showing that life and death go round like the four seasons. What he sees: the surviving one too was at first "how could I not be stricken"; how he afterward takes this death is his own step, which Huizi's ruler cannot measure. What he puts to this paper is how the surviving one comes to understand a death anew: having seen clearly that life and death go round like the four seasons, he took following after her wailing as not understanding fate, and so stopped. What this passage stops is the weeping; it does not here judge remembering and still loving, all together, as not understanding. They meet in: whether the surviving one weeps or sings is not a criterion from outside; Huizi's "not weeping at her death would be enough" measures him from outside with a ruler, and this paper does not measure that way either (MA45). His "and so I stopped" is his own step after seeing, not something anyone fixed for him. They part at two points. First, he puts death into the transformations of qi, form and life, and says that person "lies at rest in the great chamber"; this paper does not judge whether there is another side after death, or what it is like, nor does it say that nothing happens any more there. Second, this paper keeps three things apart: the visible weeping and singing, how the surviving one understands this death, and whether love has ended; it does not let the first two answer for the third. Remembering and still loving this paper reads neither as not understanding, nor as deeper; whether love has ended is the surviving one's own affair, and stopping weeping or not stopping are both only clues.

§7 Drawing Together and Downstream

This paper has laid down seven propositions. Taken together, they say: a marriage that carries the 15DD direction has four shapes of ending: one party's or both parties' love ending, breaking the commitment of marriage, divorce, bereavement of a spouse; together with the dissolution under the endorsing institution, the several endings can fall out of step. Where one party's love is gone and he still stands on the commitment, he is read by the commitment and not judged to be a means; that marriage exits scope from then on; this is not traced back, and there is no turning to judge; whether love has ended is the affair of the one who loves, and no road is laid out for what follows. Where a person no longer stands where he promised, and lets the semblance of love hold up the other party's arrangements in his place, this is the structure of dropping; this is the leaver's reading of himself, and dropping is not reported from outside; breaking the commitment is entered apart, the direction of colonization falls only on dropping and falsity, and breaking it does not first establish that love has moved away; leaving must be entered on the books, and there must also be a declaration the other party can clearly understand; the three are entered apart. The qualification to exit cannot be locked, and running is checked separately; whether staying has grounds is read party by party, not divided by who knows what; where exit is within reach, all that is taken away is the lock; the freedom to exit is read on the side of not doubting that oneself is an end, and non dubito is neither certified nor denied by the state of the channels. Divorce has two steps: the declaration is at the layer of the relation, and dissolution belongs to the recognition component; the two steps are entered apart, and neither the procedure nor moving out proves anything by itself; using a construct to bear down on a person is read as between person and person. Exit does not settle shared matters, nor does it turn into a demand that "you must come back"; where one party withdraws while the two are preparing together, this is withdrawing one's own side, and the conditions and effects already left are entered as they stand; saying for the other party, on leaving, that nothing was lost slides in the direction of colonization. In bereavement, endorsement goes by the rules, love is seen from the subject's side, and whether there is another side after death is not judged.

This paper does not prove that one ought to stay, nor that one ought to leave; it does not prove that divorce is failure, nor that holding on is faithfulness.

The question left open. An Ran says that her love was gone by the winter before last, and that year she still stood where she promised. If in that year there were a few moments when love came back, and went again, how should the year be read? Love is read by moments, and falling back and coming back are both read as they occur; how sparse the moments of love in a marriage can become before this series no longer reads it, this paper draws no line for, and can draw none: love is seen from the subject's side, and moments cannot be counted from outside. This question is left open.

Downstream. With this paper the whole series has been read through. The propositions each paper has laid down are listed together in Paper 0; "exit" and "divorce," the two components of the exit right, the two senses of "knowing" and "able to leave" are listed together in Paper 0 with the shared words of the other papers. The side of shared child-rearing after parting that lies between parent and child is handed to Parent-Child Theory. The procedures of divorce, and the rules of inheritance and remarriage, belong to the institutional side; this series only registers them.

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

  1. Paper 1, MA1. ↩︎
  2. Paper 1, MA3, MA9. ↩︎
  3. Love Theory Paper 0, §8: "Ending comes in four kinds, which can fall out of step with one another: an appearance passes; my love ends; the shared dealings terminate; commitments and effects remain unsettled." ↩︎
  4. Relation Theory H56: "Withdrawing one's own side is exit and does not carry the direction of colonization". Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26: "When this series speaks of exit, it follows the usage of the Conflict Treatise, Action Theory and the Second Critique: withdrawing one's own side, no longer lending one's strength, presupposing no registered position". ↩︎
  5. Rights Theory P4 F18, as quoted in Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26: "Its basic component is the self-determining floor of not being trapped, not being engulfed by a closing relation, on the Dao spine; its recognition component is the exit channel the subject holds in some identifiable relational or institutional position." The sentence is given as it stands in the original. In the same place: "This series does not read recognition-based rights (Paper 1, H11); the exit right it speaks of means only F18's basic component". ↩︎
  6. Relation Theory H5: collision, "whether or not it is felt, whether or not there is incompatibility, and whether or not the parties know". ↩︎
  7. Relation Theory H26; Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26. ↩︎
  8. Relation Theory H55: "unilateral exit does not settle the accounts". ↩︎
  9. Paper 1, MA3, MA9. ↩︎
  10. Relation Theory H23. ↩︎
  11. Paper 1, MA3. ↩︎
  12. Relation Theory Paper 3, under H30: "Having grounds comes in two kinds. One is commitment, explicit or implicit, which rests on where one stands. The other is choosing for oneself, each time, to stay, without having promised anything." ↩︎
  13. 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 in marriage is an extension, this series' own undertaking. In the same section, object dissolution is said to "neither ratify the past". ↩︎
  14. Conflict Treatise §2. ↩︎
  15. Love Theory L1: "Love is seen from the subject's side; whether one loves is the affair of the one who loves". ↩︎
  16. Relation Theory H37: "Saying an expectation out loud is a form of questioning"; 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. Judging for her whether her love has ended is read on the same structure; this is an extension, this series' own undertaking. ↩︎
  17. Paper 4, MA22. ↩︎
  18. Love Theory Paper 4, L29, the subsection "Where the Direction of Dropping Falls". ↩︎
  19. Love Theory Paper 0, §10, the fifth remainder. ↩︎
  20. 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". ↩︎
  21. Love Theory L29: "what is read is the declaration and the structural effect of that promise on her, not whether I owned the change in my heart". ↩︎
  22. Relation Theory H28; Love Theory Paper 4, L29, the subsection "What Is Read Is the Declaration and the Structure, Not Whether the Change Was Owned in the Heart". ↩︎
  23. Love Theory Paper 0, §5: "Breaking a promise. Taken in the narrow sense: the direction of colonization falls only on dropping and falsity; leaving with the books kept, non-fulfillment, obstruction and joint revision of the agreement do not carry it." ↩︎
  24. The Second Critique, Chapter Five §2, as quoted in Relation Theory Paper 3, under H28: "Dropping is quietly setting it down when it suits, with no account kept"; in the same place: "A false commitment is one where, at the time of promising, one never stood there". ↩︎
  25. The Second Critique, Chapter Five §2, as quoted in Relation Theory Paper 3, under H23: "Three things are entered apart: leaving in one matter; revising the whole law; still holding the law and not managing it this time." ↩︎
  26. Love Theory L41: "one cannot, merely because a new love has appeared, conclude backward that the old love had already ended". Carrying it here to breaking the commitment and to an affair outside marriage is an extension, this series' own undertaking. ↩︎
  27. Love Theory L36: "operation may be interrupted, and when it is, it is entered separately by the operation of that occasion and is not on that account called wavering; if the moments of love alternate between two people, it is still entered as wavering". ↩︎
  28. The Second Critique, Chapter Five §2, as quoted in Love Theory Paper 4, under L29: "Keeping the books means being able to say it plainly oneself, not reporting to anyone." ↩︎
  29. Love Theory Paper 4, under L29: "Being understandable does not require that she agree to the exit, nor is her refusing to admit it taken as counter-evidence." ↩︎
  30. Relation Theory H23, H25: where a commitment has been made to others, one's own change or leaving does not clear the books on the other party's side. ↩︎
  31. Love Theory Paper 4, under L29: "Her knowing of the exit, her agreeing to the exit and my having owned the change are three things." ↩︎
  32. F6, Appendix D, SAE Marriage Principles (a working demonstration, not evidentiary), item 7. The inner double quotation marks of the original are given here as single quotation marks. ↩︎
  33. Relation Theory H26. ↩︎
  34. Meaning Theory P1, Y4, the second feature. ↩︎
  35. Relation Theory H30. ↩︎
  36. Relation Theory Paper 3, under H30. ↩︎
  37. Relation Theory Paper 3, under H30: "the four cells are divided by whether each side has grounds for maintaining, not by who knows what; which side knows what is stated case by case". ↩︎
  38. Relation Theory H31. ↩︎
  39. Relation Theory Paper 3, under H30; see note 37. ↩︎
  40. Paper 2, MA14: in marriage both sides of non dubito are present: not doubting that oneself is an end, and not doubting that the other is an end. ↩︎
  41. Meaning Theory P1, Y4, the second feature: "Running can be obstructed; the position is not taken away from outside." ↩︎
  42. Love Theory L29. ↩︎
  43. Rights Theory P4 F18, as quoted in Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26; see note 5. ↩︎
  44. Paper 1, MA1. ↩︎
  45. Relation Theory H26; Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26: "where the cost is raised until he actually cannot leave, it falls under the third"; "Fear by itself does not show that exit has been sealed off." ↩︎
  46. Economics P2 §5.1, as quoted in Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26: "Exit costs can be high enough to be practically equivalent to lock-in". ↩︎
  47. Relation Theory H56: when one party exits, "whichever party acts outward, adding consequences, using the occasion to apply pressure and calling on others to isolate him all carry the direction of colonization". Relation Theory Paper 6, under H56: "whether the withdrawal is being used to set a penalty on the other party's using a channel"; "what is judged is this function, not the syntax". ↩︎
  48. Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26: "You promised, so you're not allowed to leave"; "Leaving is betrayal": these 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. ↩︎
  49. Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26; Relation Theory H9. ↩︎
  50. Conflict Treatise §2. ↩︎
  51. Relation Theory H55. ↩︎
  52. Relation Theory H12: where three or more are involved, dealings are "broken down into effects between pairs and entered on separate accounts". ↩︎
  53. Relation Theory Paper 6, §4: one party exits while the other party's reliance remains; "exit does not settle it; nor does it turn into a demand that 'you must come back.'" Relation Theory Paper 3, under H24: "Not being settled does not mean having to resume contact, having to answer without limit or having to repair." ↩︎
  54. Relation Theory H58: "leaving the shared matters room for natural development when one exits points in the direction of cultivation". Relation Theory Paper 6, under H58: to fix the future for the other party, as something he must follow and cannot change himself, slides in the direction of colonization; to do something else so that the other party's step of carrying on is out of reach is creating difficulties, and carries the direction of colonization. ↩︎
  55. Paper 5, MA30: having avowed, one can still change one's mind, and the way to say no and to change one's mind must be there; where one party does not avow, there is no thing the two do together. Relation Theory H56: "Withdrawing one's own side is exit and does not carry the direction of colonization". ↩︎
  56. Paper 5, under MA30: whether preparation occurred, what conditions it actually left, and whether that person came are entered apart as three things; that he did not come does not retroactively judge that the earlier preparation never occurred. Relation Theory H58: what continues after parting can be the conditions and effects that still exist. ↩︎
  57. Relation Theory H58. ↩︎
  58. Relation Theory H57: "Exit does not delete recognition". Relation Theory Paper 6, under H56, citing the Second Critique, Chapter Six §6, which cites Action Theory Paper 7, D41: "no longer lending one's strength, no longer keeping in touch, coexist with recognizing that he is a person." ↩︎
  59. Relation Theory H55. ↩︎
  60. Relation Theory H57: saying, on exiting, something like "Nothing is lost by walking away like this" says for the other party what this exit amounts to, moves to occupy the other party's own step of understanding, and slides in the direction of colonization. ↩︎
  61. Love Theory L41. The antecedent used here is that a love has ended, not that exit has occurred. ↩︎
  62. Love Theory L17. ↩︎
  63. Love Theory L41: "one cannot, merely because a new love has appeared, conclude backward that the old love had already ended". The same proposition says that loving someone else after a love has ended is succession; bereavement is not the same as love's having ended (see note 62), so only the second half of the sentence is taken here. ↩︎
  64. Relation Theory Paper 1, under H1. ↩︎
  65. Relation Theory H27: "Commitment does not turn into a duty to the other party"; H58: what continues after parting can be the conditions and effects that still exist. Carrying this to bereavement is an extension, this series' own undertaking. ↩︎
  66. Relation Theory Paper 0, §13. ↩︎
  67. Hume, "Of Polygamy and Divorces": "The exclusion of polygamy and divorces sufficiently recommends our present EUROPEAN practice with regard to marriage". ↩︎
  68. Same essay, paragraph 15: "Those who would defend this practice may employ the following reasons". Paragraph numbers follow the davidhume.org text. ↩︎
  69. Same essay, paragraph 16, among the arguments he drafts for the side that favors divorce: "nothing can be more cruel than to preserve, by violence, an union". The body paraphrases the sense of this and the following sentences, quoting only these opening words. ↩︎
  70. Same essay, paragraph 18: "But there seem to be these three unanswerable objections against them". The three below, the children, necessity and separate interests, are these three. The conclusion is in paragraph 22; see note 67. ↩︎
  71. Same essay: "What must become of the children, upon the separation of the parents?" ↩︎
  72. Same essay: "the heart of man naturally submits to necessity, and soon loses an inclination"; "So sober an affection, therefore, as friendship, rather thrives under constraint". ↩︎
  73. Same essay: "nothing is more dangerous than to unite two persons so closely in all their interests and concerns"; "The least possibility of a separate interest must be the source of endless quarrels and suspicions". ↩︎
  74. Relation Theory Paper 3, under H30: "Having grounds and being under a lock can coexist". ↩︎
  75. Titled The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: Restor'd to the Good of Both Sexes, From the Bondage of Canon Law (title as listed in the Wikipedia entry). ↩︎
  76. The 1644 edition: "in Gods intention a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and the noblest end of mariage"; "That indisposition, unfitnes, or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature unchangeable, hindring, and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugall society, which are solace and peace"; "is a greater reason of divorce then naturall frigidity, especially if there be no children, and that there be mutuall consent"; "such a mariage can be no mariage whereto the most honest end is wanting". ↩︎
  77. Same work, preface: "made themselves the bondmen of a luckles and helples matrimony". ↩︎
  78. The 1644 edition, Book II, chapter 21 (p. 74): "the absolute and final hindring of divorce cannot belong to any civil or earthly power, against the will and consent of both parties, or of the husband alone" (transcribed from the page images of the 1644 edition on Wikisource). The body gives it in paraphrase. ↩︎
  79. §176. Knox's translation: "There can be no compulsion on people to marry; and, on the other hand, there is no merely legal or positive bond which can hold the parties together once their dispositions and actions have become hostile and contrary"; "may not grant divorce until it is satisfied that the estrangement is total". ↩︎
  80. §176, Addition. The Additions were compiled by the editor from students' lecture notes, and rank below the main text. Knox's translation: "To be sure, marriage ought to be indissoluble, but here again we have to stop at this 'ought'"; "it cannot be dissolved at will but only by an ethical authority, whether the church or the law-court"; "If the parties are completely estranged, e.g. owing to adultery, then even the ecclesiastical authority must permit divorce". ↩︎
  81. Lu Xun, "Nala zou hou zenyang" [What Happens After Nora Leaves?], a lecture given on 26 December 1923 at the literary society of the Beijing Women's Higher Normal School, later collected in Fen [The Grave]: 但从事理上推想起来，娜拉或者也实在只有两条路：不是堕落，就是回来。 (English rendering this paper's own) ↩︎
  82. Same lecture: 所以为娜拉计，钱，——高雅的说罢，就是经济，是最要紧的了。自由固不是钱所能买到的，但能够为钱而卖掉。…… 第一，在家应该先获得男女平均的分配；第二，在社会应该获得男女相等的势力。 (English renderings this paper's own) ↩︎
  83. Same lecture: 人生最苦痛的是梦醒了无路可以走。 (English rendering this paper's own) ↩︎
  84. Zhuangzi, "Zhi le" [Perfect Happiness], as quoted in Li Cunshan, "Zhuangzi's Metaphor of Firewood and Fire, and 'Release from Hanging'," cross-checked against other transcriptions for the sentence beginning 察其始而本无生……; not checked against a standard annotated edition: 与人居，长子老身，死不哭亦足矣，又鼓盆而歌，不亦甚乎？…… 不然。是其始死也，我独何能无概然！察其始而本无生，非徒无生也而本无形，非徒无形也而本无气。…… 是相与为春秋冬夏四时行也。人且偃然寝于巨室，而我噭噭然随而哭之，自以为不通乎命，故止也。 (English renderings this paper's own) ↩︎

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). What Kind of Relation Meaning Is (SAE Meaning Theory, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22652134

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 0: The Place of Relation Theory [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545115

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 1: What a Relation Is, and What It Is Not [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545047

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 3: Commitment [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545023

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 4: Dealings and Expectation [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545057

Qin, H. (2026). SAE Relation Theory Paper 6: Asymmetry, Divergence and Ending [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23545087

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 4: No Substitute [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23627776

II · External works

Classical texts are given in simplified characters.

Hume, David. "Of Polygamy and Divorces". In Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987. (Online Library of Liberty / econlib transcription; paragraph numbers follow Hume Texts Online, davidhume.org)

Milton, John. The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1643; 2nd ed. 1644). (the thesis from the 1644 text in the Dartmouth Milton Reading Room; Book II, chapter 21 transcribed from the page images of the 1644 edition on Wikisource, p. 74)

Hegel, G. W. F. Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (1820), §176 and Addition. English: Hegel's Philosophy of Right, trans. T. M. Knox. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1952. (marxists.org transcription; the German original has not been checked)

Lu Xun 鲁迅. "Nala zou hou zenyang" 娜拉走后怎样 [What Happens After Nora Leaves?] (1923). In Fen 坟 [The Grave]. (the Lu Xun quanji text in the Chinese section of the Marxists Internet Archive)

Zhuangzi 庄子, "Zhi le" 至乐 [Perfect Happiness]. (as quoted by Li Cunshan; not checked against a standard annotated edition)

III · Secondary literature

Li Cunshan 李存山. 庄子的薪火之喻与「悬解」 [Zhuangzi's Metaphor of Firewood and Fire, and "Release from Hanging"]. Reprinted on aisixiang.com.

Wikipedia. "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce". (used only to check the title)

Interfaces

  • Main upstream: Relation Theory Paper 6 (H55 to H58, and the sections under H56, H57 and H58; §4); Relation Theory Paper 3 (H23, H25, H26, H27, H28, H30, H31, and the sections under H23, H24, H26, H28 and H30); Love Theory Paper 0 (§5, §8, §10; L1, L17, L36, L41) and Love Theory Paper 4, L29; the principles contained in F6 Appendix D, item 7.
  • Also used: Relation Theory Paper 1 (H5, H9, H12; the section under H1), Paper 4 (H37), Paper 0 (§13); the Conflict Treatise (§2, §23); Meaning Theory P1 (Y4, the second feature); Rights Theory P4 F18 (by way of Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26); Economics P2 §5.1 (by way of Relation Theory Paper 3, under H26); the Second Critique, Chapter Five §2 (by way of Relation Theory Paper 3, under H23 and H28, and Love Theory Paper 4, under L29) and Chapter Six §6 (by way of Relation Theory Paper 6, under H56); Action Theory Paper 7, D41 (by way of the Second Critique, Chapter Six §6, as quoted in Relation Theory Paper 6, under H56).
  • This series: continues from Paper 1, MA1, MA3, MA9; continues from Paper 2, MA14 (the two sides of non dubito); continues from Paper 5, MA30 (one party withdrawing while the preparing is under way; the three things entered apart); Paper 4 takes up choosing again together (MA22); Paper 6 takes up the side of shared child-rearing between husband and wife; Paper 0 lists together the propositions and shared words of all the papers, and writes there the two sides of non dubito.