purely moral judgement concerning monogamy is given priority over the interests of innocent children. That is transpersonalism pur sang. This approach, prevailing until so recently, is still based on the medieval concept of marriage, although the author himself will hardly have been aware of this link The personalistic approach is also as old as the world itself. It is one of the cornerstones of Christian philosophy. 42 The essence of personalism is that the interests of the individual receive priority over abstract moralistic values. Because the abstract values in question were based on the old patriarchal family morals inherited from the Middle Ages, the ift to the personalistic attitude is often described as the liberalisation of family law from the influence of morality. 43 In fact, family law was merely released from the old family morals in favour of a new, person-orientated morality, based on an ideology of tolerance. 44 The moral d imension of family law is inevitable: the choice for the individual and his/her interests is the choice for a morality of another kind. 45 4. From the medieval uniform law to the diversity of modern times: Difference in timing, resemblance in substance The liberation from the medieval heritage took place in all European countries without exception, and is not entirely complete even tod ay. The driving forces(notions of personal freedom, autonomy and the equality of men and women) and the direction( towards a person-orientated family law)were the same everywhere, but the process was far from being synchronised in the various countries. 46 The beginning of the 20th century witnessed an accelerating process of liberalisation of family law that had previously dragged on so slowly From that time onwards, a distinction can be made between countries in the vanguard and those in the rearguard. The Scandinavian countries, the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries led the way, the South European countries held up the rear, and the rest of Europe can be placed somewhere in between. 47 The countries where a rad ical reform of family law took place earliest were Portugal, Scandinavia and the Soviet Union. For those who try to explain the development of family law by way of economic ad vancement, the composition of this group of countries must be something of a mystery. Of all places, it was in agrarian Catholic Portugal that, after the 42 The Sabbath was made for man and not man forthe sabbath' 4 De ruiter(1990),pp.195-200 44Eg, Shultz formulates this as follows: " [S]pecific prescriptions about right and wrong must be replaced by a new credo: tolerance of individual variations and values. In the same way, if individual fulfilment is the ultimate value, then pursuit of it justifies sacrificing such goals as permanence [of marriage]: Shultz(1982),p. 251 45 An example is the objective of the Swedish legislator not to give marriage any privileges above unmarried cohabitation in order not to impose any moral or ethical judgments; Agell (1998), pp. 128-129. To my mind, his objective can also be seen as the choice for another, tolerance-based morality 46The scope of this article forces me to skip a few centuries(although the family legislation of the French revolution and the Prussian Allgemeines Landrecht of 1794 were of great importance for the process of the modemisation of family law)and to jump to the 20 century 47This, of course, is a rather simplistic sketch of a more complicated situation. East-European law was not modern in all respects. Portugal was the first country where radical reform, albeit not lasting reform, took place In some other countries, the modernity of family law differed significantly from one particular institution to anotherpurely moral judgement concerning monogamy is given priority over the interests of innocent children. That is transpersonalism pur sang. This approach, prevailing until so recently, is still based on the medieval concept of marriage, although the author himself will hardly have been aware of this link. The personalistic approach is also as old as the world itself. It is one of the cornerstones of Christian philosophy.42 The essence of personalism is that the interests of the individual receive priority over abstract moralistic values. Because the abstract values in question were based on the old patriarchal family morals inherited from the Middle Ages, the shift to the personalistic attitude is often described as the liberalisation of family law from the influence of morality.43 In fact, family law was merely released from the old family morals in favour of a new, person-orientated morality, based on an ideology of tolerance.44 The moral dimension of family law is inevitable: the choice for the individual and his/her interests is the choice for a morality of another kind.45 4. From the medieval uniform law to the diversity of modern times: Difference in timing, resemblance in substance The liberation from the medieval heritage took place in all European countries without exception, and is not entirely complete even today. The driving forces (notions of personal freedom, autonomy and the equality of men and women) and the direction (towards a person-orientated family law) were the same everywhere, but the process was far from being synchronised in the various countries.46 The beginning of the 20th century witnessed an accelerating process of liberalisation of family law that had previously dragged on so slowly. From that time onwards, a distinction can be made between countries in the vanguard and those in the rearguard. The Scandinavian countries, the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries led the way, the South European countries held up the rear, and the rest of Europe can be placed somewhere in between.47 The countries where a radical reform of family law took place earliest were Portugal, Scandinavia and the Soviet Union. For those who try to explain the development of family law by way of economic advancement, the composition of this group of countries must be something of a mystery. Of all places, it was in agrarian Catholic Portugal that, after the 42‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.’ 43De Ruiter (1990), pp. 195-200. 44E.g., Shultz formulates this as follows: ‘[S]pecific prescriptions about right and wrong must be replaced by a new credo: tolerance of individual variations and values. In the same way, if individual fulfilment is the ultimate value, then pursuit of it justifies sacrificing such goals as permanence [of marriage]’; Shultz (1982), p. 251. 45An example is the objective of the Swedish legislator not to give marriage any privileges above unmarried cohabitation in order not to impose any moral or ethical judgments; Agell (1998), pp. 128-129. To my mind, this objective can also be seen as the choice for another, tolerance-based morality. 46The scope of this article forces me to skip a few centuries (although the family legislation of the French revolution and the Prussian Allgemeines Landrecht of 1794 were of great importance for the process of the modernisation of family law) and to jump to the 20th century. 47This, of course, is a rather simplistic sketch of a more complicated situation. East-European law was not modern in all respects. Portugal was the first country where radical reform, albeit not lasting reform, took place. In some other countries, the modernity of family law differed significantly from one particular institution to another