be and approach foreign systems whose real content empirically resembles (but is not completely similar) the content of a particular constructed theoretical construction.A macro-construct gives the comparatist a blunt device for “pre-understanding”which is rationally constructed and epistemically has a firmer basis than reliance on one’s own prejudices and possibly faulty beliefs as to the general contents, characteristics and structure of foreign law and legal praxis. However, benefits from legal families are limited to the micro-comparatist. The deeper comparative research process of foreign law goes, the less significance the assisting role of macro-constructs becomes. In the research of individual statute’s or an institution’s functions i.e. functional comparative law, the role of macro-construct is quite insignificant. The actual role of a macro-construct is probably most significant in the first stages of comparison,when foreign law is approached for the first time and an attempt is made to gain a general view of it. In the same way, it is most likely that the comparatist who surpasses the borders of a familiar cultural sphere reaps the greatest benefit. When the level of comparison gets more detailed, the significance of legal families lessens and the original roughly drafted map takes on more nuance and precision. It is not possible to proceed very far on the basis of macro-constructs, and when needed they have to be rejected and replaced with more detailed data. So, legal family or culture is not an exact empirical description of a group of legal systems, but an analytical structure, which provides expressive concepts for such description. When such a structure is constructed, however, it is based on knowledge of the real contents of legal systems; legal family is not fictional. It has both analytical and empirical features.As such, it resembles to a considerable extent, with its central theoretical characteristics,Weber’s concept of “ideal-type”. It also answers the question of what the methodological connections are between macro-comparative law and micro-comparative law;“Grand theories” have a certain connection with comparison of rules and institutions. To summarise,macro-constructs of comparative law are being widely regarded as something purely theoretical and yet they may also play a practical role in the comparative study of law.Accordingly, it is not just a question of botanical interest of classifying out of sheer scientific happiness nor it is merely a question of creating a theoretically solid morphology of law. In fact, even overtly theoretical macro-constructs may have a concrete role in the comparative study of law even though they jaakko hu sa 117
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