hould have immense
patrimonial possessions and another nothing but debts."[2189]

We regard these possessions as the nation's, and we place indebtedness
to the nation's account. We take grain from rich communes and
departments, to feed poor communes and departments. We build bridges,
roads and canals of each district, at the expense of the State;
"we centralize the labor of the French people in a broad, opulent
fashion."[2190] We want no more local interests, recollections,
dialects, idioms and patriotisms. Only one bond should subsist between
individuals, that which attaches them to the social body. We sunder all
others; we do not tolerate any special aggregation; we do the best we
can to break up the most tenacious of all, the family.--We therefore
give marriage the status of an ordinary contract: we render this loose
and precarious, resembling as much as possible the free and transient
union of the sexes; it shall be dissolved at the option of both parties,
and even of one of the parties, after one month of formalities and of
probation. If the couple has lived separate six months; the divorce
may be granted without any probation or delay; divorced parties may
re-marry. On the other hand, we suppress marital authority: since
spouses are equal, each has equal rights over common property and the
property of each other; we deprive the husband of its administration and
render it "common" to both parties. We abolish "paternal authority;"

"it is cheating nature to enforce her rights through constraint.. ..
The only rights that parents have are those of protection and
watchfulness."[2191]

The father can no longer control the education of his children;
the State takes charge of it. The father is no longer master of his
property; that portion he can dispose of by donation or testament is
of the smallest; we prescribe an equal and forced division of
property.--Finally we preach adoption, we efface bastardy, we confer on
children born of free love, or of a despotic will, the same rights as
those of legitimate children. In short, we break that sacred circle,
that exclusive group, that aristocratic organization which, under
the name of the family, was created out of pride and
egoism.[2192]--Henceforth, affection and obedience will no longer be
frittered away; the miserable supports to which they have clung like ivy
vines, castes, churches, corporations, provinces, communes or families,
are ruined and rooted out; on the ground