Repository | Journal | Volume | Articles
(2012) Rivista di estetica 50.
Better wed than read
marriage as a paradigm case for the theory of documentality
Richard Davies
pp. 52-73
In Documentalità, Maurizio Ferraris presents marriage as a paradigmatic instance of a social object whose essence is constituted by the generation of documents. This claim appears to hold good for some of the standard forms of matrimony recognised within the Roman Law tradition. The case is put for saying that, nevertheless, the appeal to documents puts the cart before the horse: the validity of a marriage depends, if anything, on the behaviour of the participants in it as much before as after any supposed document-generating ceremony.
Publication details
Full citation:
Davies, R. (2012). Better wed than read: marriage as a paradigm case for the theory of documentality. Rivista di estetica 50, pp. 52-73.