Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/368

 354 //. FROM THE llOO'S TO THE 1800'S V. Some Differences between the Development of Roman and that of English Law The branch of private law which is most intimately con- nected with the social and economic habits of a nation, and which, through social and economic habits, most affects its character, is that branch which touches Property, and the connexion of property with the Family. The particular form which the institutions relating to property, especially immov- able property, take, tells upon the whole structure of society, especially in the earlier stages of national growth. The rules, for instance, which govern the power of an owner to dispose of his property during his life or by will, and those which determine the capacity of his wife and children to acquire for themselves by labour or through gift, and to claim a share in his estate at his decease if he dies intestate, or even against his last will — these rules touch the richer and middle classes in a community and affect their life. So one may perhaps say that the development of this branch of law comes nearer than any other to being the central line of legal devel- opment, bearing in mind that it is the needs and wishes of the richer and middle classes which guide the course of legal change. Here, however, we discover an interesting point of comparison between Roman and English legal history. At Rome it is the history of the Family, especially as taken on its economic or pecuniary side, the most important part of which is the Law of Inheritance, that plays the largest part. The old rules, which held the Family together, and vested in the father the control of family property, were at first stringent. From the third century b. c. onwards they began to be modified, but they were so closely bound up with the ideas and habits of the people that they yielded very slowly, and it was not till the bold hand of Justinian swept away nearly all that remained of the ancient rules of succes- sion, and put a plain and logical system in their place, that the process was complete. In England, on the other hand, it is the Law of Land that is the most salient feature in the economico-legal system of the Middle Ages. Among the Teutons the Family had not