The family is the basic unit of society.1 Within the ancient family, ethnography distinguishes five successive family forms. The consanguineous family; the punalua family based on group marriage; the couple family; the patriarchal family; and the monogamous family.2 This is far from the ‘free, equal private individual’ image of man rooted in the Enlightenment.3

The Roman family (Lat. familia) was a peasant family living in a household in statu nascendi. Everyone living in a house (Lat. domus) belonged to the family. The head of the family (Lat. pater familias), who had direct, unlimited power and literally reigned over life and death (Lat. ius vitae necisque), was the master of the family, as well as the wife (Lat. uxor), the children (Lat. liberi), and possibly some servants/slaves (Lat. famuli/servi) under his authority.4 The Roman family went beyond simple procreation-based relationships. This is evidenced by the fact that the married girl ceased to be a member of her father’s family after marriage.5 According to Roman Catholic theology, the Christian family is a community of persons, a trace and image of the community of the Father and the Son living in the Holy Spirit. Its life-giving and nurturing activity is a reflection of the Father’s creative work.6

 

The issues of family, marriage, property, inheritance, and expropriation sometimes pose complex problems. English law was also faced with this. English law viewed the will to not as an individual act, but as an institution serving the family’s interests. In addition, expropriation was only formally recognised after 1845, and in a very limited manner, out of respect for individual property. The supposed interest of the family also sustained the practice of the Court of Chancery between 1790 and 1890, which did not recognise the individuality of women and considered them financially dependent. This construction was also strengthened by the laws of 1870, 1874, 1881, and 1883. During the time of Győző (Victor) Concha (1846-1933), according to English regulations, if a wife committed a crime in the presence and with the consent of her husband, she could not be punished, except in the case of intentional homicide.7 Regarding the beginnings of inheritance, Weber notes that in the case of armed men, certain objects (in the Middle Ages: a mount and a sword) came to be considered as paternal property.8

 

Concha, in his exposition of the idea of freedom, refers to the fact that the individual and the community are eternal forms of ‘human’ [being], and in his opinion, these cannot be derived from each other. The ‘public’ in the form of family, tribe, society, or state has always existed, just as man and woman, young (‘child’), and old person (‘elder’) have existed at the individual level. (It is worth noting that some movements question traditional distinctions based on sex, gender and age, aiming to promote greater equality and inclusivity across these categories). At the end of the 18th century, William Blackstone (1723-1780) reduced the rights of English subjects to three original rights, or main fundamental rights, the right to personal security [in Concha’s words: security, in Hungarian vernacular form ‘biztosság’(!)], personal liberty, and private property. Jean-Louis de Lolme (1740-1806) included the right to change residence among these. This list by William Blackstone originated from the generalising trend of French legal philosophy in 1765, in addition to the influences of the 1748 seminal work of Charles Montesquieu (1689-1755),9 De l’espirit des lois [in contemporary spelling: loix]10 who, according to Concha, rose on the shoulders of John Locke (1632-1704).11

 

Of course, the present-day catalogue of human rights did not yet exist at that time, but it is necessary to recall that the origin of the natural law-based human rights doctrine is to be sought in the views of the Roman Catholic Church. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, family still stood before us as the mutual community of love between parents and siblings, the ‘second Eden,’ where the spirit of the times and the serpent of the Antichrist could not sneak in.12 Family relations were regulated by specific rules.13