Palmén published Finland’s first encyclopaedia on law, a “Legal handbook for civil education”, which was to be recommended as literature for Finnish law students until well into the 20th century.216 When discussing the systematization of law, Palmén wrote that private law concerned private persons’ legal relationships in which the state had no interest. Private law was divided into two main parts: property law and family law. Property lawcovered legal relationships which did not concern any family bonds. On the contrary, the individual appeared as a person or a legal subject, in the sense that he had rights, which should be respected by others. These rights, together with the things, which were their objects, constituted the person’s property. Consequently, property law was subdivided into the law of things, embracing on the one hand the immediate rights to things, such as ownership, and on the other hand mediate rights or claims, which emerged due to the fact that different persons carried on business with each other. These latter relationships were called obligations and the most important of them concerned transfers of ownership and grants of enjoyments or services. Family law, again, Palmén stated, could be interpreted either in a limited or an extensive sense. So far he walked along the same path as Savigny and Schrevelius. However, like his contemporaryWindscheid, Palmén limited the scope of family law to matters of husband-wife, parents-children, tutelage, inheritance and descent, and thus did not include the master-servant concept in this category.217 Palmén analysed the master-servant relationship in connection with the Book of Commerce in the Code of 1734.He wrote that disputes on trading with movable property could concern p a r t 1 i i , c h a p t e r 3 102 216 Palmén 1859. In the middle of the 19th century there was even an illustrative expression at the Faculty of Law at the Helsinki University: “the times of Palmén”. Björne 1998, pp. 200, 470. 217 Palmén 1859, pp. 33-37.
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