Ancient Law

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Description
The theory of legal development propounded in this volume has been generally accepted; but it has been thought that, in his Fifth Chapter on "Primitive Society and Ancient Law," the Author has not done sufficient justice to investigations which appear to show the existence of states of society still more rudimentary than that vividly described in the Homeric lines quoted at page 110, and ordinarily known as the Patriarchal State. The Author at page 106 has mentioned "accounts by contemporary observers of civilisations less advanced than their own," as capable of affording peculiarly good evidence concerning the rudiments of society; and, in fact, since his work was first published, in 1861, the observation of savage or extremely barbarous races has brought to light forms of social organisation extremely unlike that to which he has referred the beginnings of law
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Contents
1. Ancient Codes
2. Legal Fictions
3. Law of Nature and Equity
4. The Modern History of the Law of Nature
5. Primitive Society and Ancient Law
6. The Early History of Testamentary Succession
7. Ancient and Modern Ideas Respecting Wills
8. The Early History of Property
9. The Early History of Contract
10. The Early History of Delict and Crime
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Author Details
 Sir Henry Sumner Maine