In dealing with the question of property, we will constantly be faced with legalities that today affect the relationships of men (and women) both with property, and with one another.

The approach taken here is not based on legal niceties, technicalities, or pedantic hair-splitting, but on reality -- the way that things really are.

Where the law runs counter to reality, it will appear that we are perhaps talking about things the way that they ought to be, rather than the way they are.

Philosophically speaking, a law that runs counter to reality is no more than a distortion of fact.  The fact remains.