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Family Law and Social Change Among the Toro of Uganda
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
Jane Collier has stated that “the long preoccupation in legal studies with explaining the gap between law and behaviour has precluded the search for a more complex model of relations between law and society that accepts the gap as given”. The purpose of this paper is to further document the need for a more complex model of the relations between law and society. One question now gaining currency is: what is the relationship of law to social change? Some observers claim that “the question is no longer whether law is a significant vehicle of social change but rather how it so functions and what special problems arise”. Others regard law as a potential cause of social problems. A serious debate has thus emerged over whether law works at all to effect change and, if so, for whose benefit. This is a complex question. Legal impact studies for example, have revealed some unintended consequences of law-in-action. Moreover, it is often difficult to isolate the main effect of a legal policy, and in any case, social scientists and policymakers alike are interested in longer-range, indirect effects. It is useful, therefore, to distinguish between the direct and indirect aspects of the role of law. Given this complexity, we may usefully rephrase the question as follows: what conditions or factors affect the relationship between law and society, including social change?
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- Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1985
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