a natural part of society.This legal position reflected medieval, scholastic thinking, according to which economics was not separated from moral virtues. It also corresponded to the actual state of things, characterised by an overlapping of working life and family life. References to “natural” rules reflected what was established as common patterns in real life. During the 19th century’s transition period, discussed above in part III, these notions of society were challenged on a structural as well as on an ideological level.The “social issue” was characterised by proletarization, atomisation, and depersonalisation of labour relations. Moreover, the alliance between statusbased inequality and formal freedom of contract could be hard to digest for the representatives of a new rhetoric, which emphasised freedom of trade, equality, individual integrity and, eventually, civil rights. At the same time, ecclesiastically flavoured ideas on inequality and subordination still played an influential role. The demands for emancipation and equality met strong resistance in movements such as romanticism, historicism, Hegelianism and notions of society being an“organic”phenomenon. Even many19th century liberals were hesitant concerning the claims about everybody being equal before the law. The ideological and structural tensions interacted with legal changes which reflected the ambivalence of the period. On the one hand, several of them meant liberalisation and the abolition of rules and institutions which presupposed or supported a society founded upon status, estates and inequality. On the other hand, legislation often upheld traditional ideas about a legal difference between individuals, which modulated the picture of society built on equality and freedom.The Statute on Freedom of Trade in 1864 abolished the guild system and entitled every p a r t v, c h a p t e r 11 330 11. 3 trans i t ion, cap i tal i sm and a fre e contract of labour
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