Hegel had a vision of a dynamic society, growing and developing. Individuals played an important role, but their activity was not contractual, nor was the dynamic of society something that was visible. This complex vision of the inner workings of society is not linear. It cannot be grasped in Enlightenment terminology. The first and most important collective for Hegel is the family.
Love is a special form of reciprocity which supersedes the social contract of individualism.
Precisely because it is NOT contractual, it frees those whom it encompasses. The only idea of a marriage contract Hegel allows is a contract to go beyond contract. For Hegel, the family is the foundation of social life. According to some sources, many of his concepts were borrowed from the German mystics-Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, Jan van Ruysbroeck, and others. The concept of growth, the concept of a social whole, the concept of consciousness developing to encompass more and more.