The Green Bag
190
In other words, these interests may arise
material and immaterial things, the law
from the naturo-ethical nature of the family, or they may spring from volun
of obligations and family law, and may affect the whole existence of persons in their economic relations. These events operate as juristic facts. They accord ingly might, like all other juristic facts,
tary acts of persons having a free
determination of will. Obligatory inter ests may arise from duties voluntarily assumed and requiring a definite atti tude in accordance with legal order, as when a person obliges himself to certain conduct by agreement. Such duties may also spring from acts in contravention
of legal order — delicts — and oblige a person to a definite attitude; such as
an obligation to pay damages. The law of persons accordingly severs into — (a) Family law, and (b) The law of obligations.
remain unnoticed in a systematic ar
rangement of the law, except that in such case their position would necessitate separate prominence in every depart ment of law. Such a plan would be extremely cumbersome, and would lose in that comprehensiveness and clearness which necessarily follow from a same ness of starting point which is syste matically adhered to. Events of such extensive influence as
The law of immaterial things, which includes the right of freedom from re
to involve the four groups of the law which have been classified are — The death of a physical person; and
straint, freedom from injury, the right of reputation, and the right to intel
The creation, alteration or extinction of a family relation, which while sus
lectual creation, may also be considered
ceptible of consideration as an object of interests, may be regarded at the
as the law of personality.
This divi
sion relates to rights peculiar to one’s own person (Rechte an der eigenen Per
son, oder Persfinlichkeitsrechte)" The foregoing concludes the strict logical arrangement of the law. Didactic
and practical considerations of expedi ency require a further distinction. Its basis is that certain events at one and the same time may essentially involve 2"To avoid possible confusion. it should be stated that these rights form simply one of the classes of the major division, rights in rem. as oppoud to rights in personam. Rights in rem avail against the whole world, while rights in persona»; attach only as against definite persons. There is another leading division of rights, 1'. e.. proprietary and personal. Proprietary rights have an economic basis. while personal rights have only a juridical basis. Rights peculiar to the person in the sense here are one of the divisions of the law of things. See appen dix. See also Salmond, Jun'sprudenee (2d ed.. 1907). sec. 82; and Schuster, Principles of German Civil Law (1907). p. 67. -—-Translalor.
same time as a dispositive juristic fact. In consequence of the practical neces sity of classifying such events, two groups of legal rules arise, which may be combined under the expression,
“mixed law of persons and things." The first of these groups is based on the event of death and produces the law of inheritance. The second governs the relation of pure family law to the law of things and obligations, and is called the law of family property. Private law, therefore, is classified into
the following six divisions: I. The law of personality; II.
III. IV. V. VI.
The law of material things;
The law of obligations; Pure family law; The law of family property; and The law of inheritance.
