Society and Legal Change

by Watson, Alan; Finkelman, Paul

• ISBN13: 9781566399197
• ISBN10: 156639919X
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-08-01
• Publisher: Temple Univ Pr

Summary

In this first U.S. edition of a classic work of comparative legal scholarship, Alan Watson argues that law fails to keep step with social change, even when that change is massive. To illustrate the ways in which law is dysfunctional, he draws on the two most innovative western systems, of Rome and England, to show that harmful rules continue for centuries. To make his case, he uses examples where, in the main, "the law benefits no recognizable group or class within the society (except possibly lawyers who benefit from confusion) and is generally inconvenient or positively harmful to society as a whole or to large or powerful groups within the society."

Widely respected for his "fearless challenge of the accepted or dominant view and his own encyclopedic knowledge of Roman law" (The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing), Watson considers the development of law in global terms and across the centuries. His arguments centering on how societies borrow from other legal systems and the continuity of legal systems are particularly instructive for those

Author Biography

Alan Watson is Ernest P. Rogers Professor of Law and Distinguished Research Professor at the University of Georgia School of Law

Table of Contents

Foreword	vii
Paul Finkelman
Preface to the Second Edition	xiii
Preface	xviii
Abbreviations	xx
Introduction	1	(11)
Roman Law: the System of Contracts	12	(11)
Roman Law: Patria Potestas	23	(8)
Roman Law: Further Points	31	(16)
English Law: Real Property; Tenure and Registration	47	(14)
English Law: Libel and Slander	61	(15)
Wider Perspectives	76	(11)
Legal Scaffolding	87	(11)
Legal Transplants	98	(17)
Causes of Divergence	115	(15)
Some Conclusions	130	(10)
Study of Legal Development	140	(7)
Index	147