of lawyers cannot explain the reason for the law. Why was the subordination of married women’s property rights in the early nineteenth century so much greater in the eastern U.S. than in Mexico? Were the Mexicans less sexist? Why is or was there a Rule against Perpetuities in England and the U.S. when there was not and is not a similar rule in Scotland or continental Europe? And there is no sign of the problems of perpetuities in Roman law. Why is the heading of title four, chapter of the French code civil ‘of delicts and quasidelicts’ when the terms do not occur again, and when the distinction between them is never explained? Why in the same code are there only five articles on torts but on the relatively unimportant contract of mandat, mandate?211 Why is there such a vague provision in the code (article ) as “The child, of whatever age, owes honor and respect to his father and mother?” Why was the abolition of a similar provision in the old Dutch civil code so hotly opposed in the preparation of the recent new code when the article had never been applied? Why is there, especially in civil law countries, such a sharp division between public and private law? Why is religion, so fiercely partisan in early Christian Byzantium, so scarce in the Byzantine Justinian’s Digest andInstitutes? The answers, so important in my view for understanding the nature of law and its place in society, can only be found in the legal tradition and legal culture. Yet comparative legal history is largely unexplored. To return for a moment to delict in French law. The five provisions of the code civil have been little altered since . But the substance of the law has been greatly changed in actuality. Yet French courts cannot refer to preceding cases in their judgments. What does this tell us about legal development? 211 An indication of the reasons for the complexities of mandat deriving frommandatummay be found for the 13th century in Bezemer, Jacques, p. 79.
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