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Law and Society. Now it is obvious to everyone that, in a community such as the one in which live, some kind of law is necessary to try to prevent people from committing crimes. When the world was at a very primitive stage, there was no such law, and, if a man chose to kill his wife or if a woman succeeded in killing her husband, that was their own business and no one interfered officially.
But, for a very long time now, members of every community have made laws for themselves in self-protection. Otherwise it would have meant that the stronger man could have done what he liked with the weaker, and bad man could have joined together and terrorized the whole neighbourhood.
If it were not for the law, you could not go out in broad daylight without the fear of being kidnapped, robbed or murdered. There are far, far more good people in the world than bad, but there are enough of the bad to make law necessary in the interests of everyone.
There is no difficulty in understanding this but it is just as important to understand that law is not necessary just because there are bad people in the world. If we were all as good as we ought to be, laws would still be necessary. If we never told lies, never took anything that didn`t belong to us, never omitted to do anything that we ought to do and never did anything that we ought not to do, we should still require a set of rules of behavior, in other words laws, to enable us to live in any kind of satisfactory state.
How is one good man in a motor-car to pass another good man also in a motor-car coming in the opposite direction, unless there is some rule of the road? People sometimes hover in front of one another when they are walking on the pavement before they can pass, and they may even collide. Not much harm is done then, but, if two good men m motor-cars going m the opposite directions hover m front of one another, not knowing which side to pass, the result will probably be that there will be two good men less in the world.
So you can see that there must be laws, however good we may be. Unfortunately, however, we are none of us always good and some of us are bad, or at any rate have our bad moments, and so the law has to provide for all kinds of possibilities. Suppose you went to a greengrocer and bought some potatoes and found on your return home that they were mouldy or even that some of them were stones. What could you do if there were no laws on the subject? In the absence of law you could only rely upon the law of the jungle. You could go back to the shop, demand proper potatoes and hit the shopkeeper on the nose if he refused to give them to you. You might then look round the shop to try to find some decent potatoes. While you were doing this, the shopkeeper might hit you on the back of the neck with a pound weight. Altogether not a very satisfactory morning shopping, or you might pay your money to go to see a film at a cinema. You might go inside, sit down and wait. When the cinema was full, there might be flashed on the screen: "You've had it, Chums". And that might be the whole of the entertainment. If there were no law, the manager could safely remain on the premises and, as you went out, smile at you and say: «Hope you`ve enjoyed the show, sir». That is to say, he could do this safely if he were bigger than you or had a well-armed bodyguard.
Every country tries, therefore, to provide laws which will help its people to live safely and as comfortably as possible. This is not at all an easy thing to do, and no country has been such producing laws which are entirely satisfactory. But we are far better off with the imperfect laws which we have, than if we had none at all.
The Need for Law. As humans have developed the institutions of community, the need for some norms of organized and predictable behaviour to guide the relationships between individuals has become increasingly important. Behavioural norms of early social groups were based upon local customs and spiritual beliefs, enforced through the power of individuals or groups. These were usually founded upon common sense, and transmitted to new members of societies by word of mouth. As these customary norms were adopted over long periods of time, they became accepted as laws, and became part of the social contract of the society.
The increasing complexity of societies resulted in the need for more formal and complex behavioural norms, or laws, though inconsistent application and interpretation of these laws was common. Decisions about the laws made in one particular community would often contradict decisions in another community, even when circumstances were similar. Despite this injustice, the need remained, however, to limit the behaviour of the individual where such behaviour infringed upon the freedom of another, or was offensive to the community at large.
In England, this lead to the development of the system of the common law. This system of recording cases and examining precedent significantly improved the application of law and administration of justice, and continues to be an important facet of the justice system today. The quest for consistency and fairness in application of the law continues as a significant issue for individuals, institutions, and societies.
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