Hence any
party may annul a contract like this if entered into with any other,
at any time and at pleasure; and that other would have no ground, in
the circumstances, to complain of a lesion of his right. The same
holds likewise of a morganatic or "left-hand" marriage, contracted
in order to turn the inequality in the social status of the two
parties to advantage in the way of establishing the social supremacy
of the one over the other; for, in fact, such a relation is not really
different from concubinage, according to the principles of natural
right, and therefore does not constitute a real marriage. Hence the
question may be raised as to whether it is not contrary to the
equality of married persons when the law says in any way of the
husband in relation to the wife, "he shall be thy master," so that
he is represented as the one who commands, and she is the one who
obeys. This, however, cannot be regarded as contrary to the natural
equality of a human pair, if such legal supremacy is based only upon
the natural superiority of the faculties of the husband compared
with the wife, in the effectuation of the common interest of the
household, and if the right to command is based merely upon this fact.
For this right may thus be deduced from the very duty of unity and
equality in relation to the end involved.
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