considerably from the common European continental model by giving greater integrity to the individual worker. Legal science, however, is not a neutral technique, but a system, which delivers answers to political questions.109 Nor were Nehrman’s analysis and conclusions created in an ideological or sociological vacuum. His view of society seems to be in line with the medieval, scholastic and metaphysical thinking which presupposed and idealised the personalised bonds and commitment of the hierarchical structure as an equal balance of reciprocal diffuseness. In this system, the household, or the family, was the most important estate, as being the state’s fundamental institution for the creation of social order and for the benefit of the general welfare. The master of the household was thus given a great responsibility to carry out the purposeful control and management of the life of his family members. His wife, children and servants had an indisputable duty of obedience and loyalty towards their master.The servants’ subordination to legitimate authority was thought to be a natural, inevitable adjunct of moral grace and practical virtue.To refuse to obey orders was presented not only as a breach of a private contract, but furthermore a breach against overall, divine, moral principles.The individual as a moral agent could not be separated from his economic activities. This patriarchal ideology and regulation corresponded to the established customs and actual positions of the period. Dominant features were a minimal division of labour, little mobility and competition, primitive economy, small units, even in the majority of the cities, and a maximal incidence of face-to-face dealings. The workman normally lived as a member of the master’s family and was seen as a general contribution to the needs of the master and his enterprise, irrespective if it was a household, farm or workshop.110 From this materialistic and conflict-orientated historical c o n t i n u i t y a n d c o n t r ac t 59 109 Ylikangas 1983. 110 Fox 1974, p. 185.
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