mistress, the prohibition against staying away from the house without permission, and the obligation to move with the master of the household. However, remaining were the servant’s farreaching obligations of duty and loyalty, which among other thing meant that an employer could dismiss a servant who was “insubordinate” or who did not behave well outside of working. In the same way, the master’s obligation to take care of his servants was retained even regarding old servants who had faithfully served him for from the age of 30until their declining years. The concerns that were aired against getting rid of the statute dealt with what social instance should take over the master’s social responsibility and that the statute gave a certain necessary firmness to the contractual relationships within agriculture.521 In 1926 the Social Democratic government forced through a measure totally abolishing the Statute on Hired Servants from 1833.522 However, the change in the law was not entirely uncontroversial. Karl Gustaf Westman (1876-1944), representative of the Agrarian Party and professor of legal history at Uppsala University, argued in a reservation that the Master-Servant Statute should be kept for a while taking into account agriculture’s need for year-long employment. Contracts for a shorter period of time would not be desirable “from a social point of view”.Moreover, the Council of Legislation (Sw. Lagrådet), which consisted of judges from the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court, recommended that Sweden keep the Master-Servant Statute, which to be sure was antiquated but “in its basic ideas [was] still vigorous legislation”.523 p a r t i v, c h a p t e r 9 256 521 MAK 1918:264; Prop. 1919:319; SFS 1919:212, SFS 1920:295; MAK 1920:15 (P E Sköld); MFK1921:135; LU2 1921:2; LU2 1924:11; MAK1924:11; FK1924:26; AK 1924:25. 522 Prop. 1926:183; MAK 1926:41; LU2 1926:28; FK 1926:35, pp. 48-49; AK 1926:36, pp. 30-31; RSkr 1926:250; SFS 1926:145. 523 “…denna visserligen ålderdomliga men…till sina grundtankar ännu livskraftiga lagstiftning…”. Justices of the Supreme Court, Svedelius, Christiansson and Högstedt; Prop. 1926:183, pp. 57-58. K GWestman in LU2 1926:28, p. 6. See also MAK1926:411.
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