rules, on the contrary, reflected the “natural”, true and necessary essence of law and must be maintained. This influenced his view on labour relations, since he did not place the master-servant relationship in the law of obligations or contracts, but in the same sector as family relationships.This meant that labour relationships were located close to the archetypal rights (“Urrechten”), which in every respect were excluded from the field of positive law and lay outside the scope of the parties’ determination.Workers, like women, were to be treated like children under the supremacy of the family’s master. Hence his claim on a move from status to personal autonomy, which has attracted much attention ever since, was considerably watered down. The main current of thought in Swedish legal texts of the 19th century, however, no doubt followed a line that also was expressed by Bernhard Windscheid, who represented the historical school’s “younger” section, namely, explicitly to treat the masterservant relations as a branch of the law of obligations.Thus the master-servant relationship was placed in the same field as contracts on sale and exchange, representing a modern variant of the Roman lawlocatio conductio operarum. Thus we have found no support for the opinion that the most common opinion beforeWinroth was to treat the master-servant relationship as a branch of family law. This conclusion, which may appear as a falsification of Folke Schmidt’s theses from1959, however, must be modified. Most Swedish legal scholars, namely, implied that there were “ethical bonds” and an essential inequality between the parties, in particular marked by the working party’s duty of being an openended contribution at the paying party’s disposal. Accordingly, the tradition from Nehrman’s analysis of master-servant issues was transferred to a secularised and purpose-directed doctrine. The scholars did not bother about its legal foundation other than referring to public law legislation, primarily the master-servant act of 1833. p a r t v, c h a p t e r 11 332
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