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Rationality, Legal Change, and Community in Connecticut, 1690-1760

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2024

Bruce H. Mann
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Abstract

The paper examines certain legal changes in eighteenth-century Connecticut, primarily in the area of debt litigation, and links them with economic development and with changes in the nature and meaning of community. The legal changes proceeded in the direction of greater rationality as expanding economic activity disrupted the multiplex ties that had once characterized communities and paired people instead in single-interest relationships. Max Weber's concept of rationality provides a theoretical base for the historical study of legal change.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , Winter 1980 , pp. 187 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 The Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Barbara A. Black, Anthony T. Kronman, H.C. Macgill, and Aviam Soifer, for their comments and suggestions on various drafts. Thanks are also due to Robert Gordon, Stanley Katz and Thomas Stone for their most helpful comments as reviewers of the manuscript. Edmund S. Morgan planted the original idea, although he should not be held responsible for what grew from it. An earlier version of the paper was presented to the Center for Law and Liberal Education at Brown University on May 4, 1978.