Box 32 contains Bentham’s drafts of a civil code which would clarify areas of private law relating to matters such as inheritance, marriage and property. There was increased support for greater codification in the later eighteenth century, particularly in mainland Europe. New legal codes were set out in Austria in 1787, in Prussia in 1794 and most notably in France with the Napoleonic code of 1804. Some of these documents are part of Bentham’s Projet d’un corps de loix complet which he worked on during the 1780s. This was his unfinished attempt to create a complete plan for legal reform and codification. Bentham wrote much of this material in French. He hoped that he would reach a wider audience by using what was then the international language of Europe.

Detailed contents of this box are as follows:

• Folios 1 to 4: Civil code - four ends, restitutions [c. 1785]
• Folios 5 to 63: Code Civil - droit privé propriété - projet matière [1785-90]
• Folios 64 to 92: 2de partie contenant moyens d'acquérir et de perdre [c. 1785]
• Folios 93 to 101: Code civil - 3me partie contenant droits et obligations à attacher aux divers états (privés) de la personne [c. 1785]
• Folios 102 to 123: Droit privé - mariage [c. 1785]
• Folio 124: Marriage - formalities [c. 1789]
• Folios 125 to 131: Droit privé - quatre buts du droit distributif [1786]
• Folios 132 to 146: Code civil - 1ere partie [fragmentary] [c. 1786]
• Folios 147 to 148: [Greatest happiness principle] - Principles adverse [c. 1786]
• Folios 149 to 155: [Civil code] - Bequest, succession [c. 1790]
• Folios 156 to 157: [Civil code] - general observations [c. 1790]
• Folios 158 to 161: [Civil code] - Objects of civil law - preface [1792]

Folios from box 32 which have already been partially or fully transcribed are listed under the progress bar below.

Box 32 Progress: Transcription begun

Untranscribed: 146
In Progress: 1
Ready For Review: 0
Completed: 11
Total: 158

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