Unwritten Law

The Historic Trial that Divided the Women of America Pearl, a stunning flapper in the Roaring Twenties, has danced for Rudolph Valentino, and enjoys the company of any man she chooses--until she decides to carry on an affair with Morgan, a married rural man with two children. Morgan's wife, Ina, disguised in borrowed clothing, guns Pearl down when she finds her on a midnight train with her arms around Morgan. The next day, Pearl's body is placed on public display for a town of strangers, and her killer is applauded in the streets by hundreds of country women. A "dream team" of defense attorneys is hired, and the stage is set for a sensational jazz era clash between two distinct views of a woman's role in modern society-that of the "virtuous" rural mother dressed in gingham and the "scarlet woman" from the city who would deny a mother and her babies the necessities of life. Should death ever be the price for adultery? That is the question the jury-and readers-are faced with in THE UNWRITTEN LAW.

In the 1870s, a Kentish woman who had been repeatedly beaten by her lover retaliated by blinding him with sulphuric acid. The judge sentenced her to five years in prison. In contrast, a man who put out the eyes of a woman who left him was sentenced to only four months after telling the judge that he `was regularly drove to do it from her aggravation'. Making innovative use of court and police records, Carolyn Conley has written a lively account of criminal justice in Victorian England. She examines the gap between the formal laws and the unwritten law of the community, as well as the ways in which judges, juries, and police officers acted as mediators between the two. The book analyses the treatment of lawbreakers according to class, gender, and community status, and in so doing presents a vivid portrait of standards of propriety and justice at the time.

Originally published posthumously in 1954, this book presents a study of the unwritten law of the Albanian mountain tribes by the renowned Scottish anthropologist, classical scholar and ethnographer Margaret Hasluck (1885-1948). In recording the legal aspects of tribal life, Hasluck also provides detailed information on the everyday existence of the tribes. Four chapters are given to the vendetta system, describing minutely the obligations of vengeance, the manner of conducting a feud, the degrees of expiation and the ways of ending. Other chapters give information about the daily life of the household; the laws governing the division of property; the administrative hierarchy; oaths, verdicts and penalties; theft and murder. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the writings of Hasluck, anthropology and the Albanian mountain tribes.

Reveals the unwritten and hitherto inaccessible principles that govern the restructuring of large corporations in Chapter 11.

Some legal rules are not laid down by a legislator but grow instead from informal social practices. In contract law, for example, the customs of merchants are used by courts to interpret the provisions of business contracts; in tort law, customs of best practice are used by courts to define professional responsibility. Nowhere are customary rules of law more prominent than in international law. The customs defining the obligations of each State to other States and, to some extent, to its own citizens, are often treated as legally binding. However, unlike natural law and positive law, customary law has received very little scholarly analysis. To remedy this neglect, a distinguished group of philosophers, historians and lawyers has been assembled to assess the nature and significance of customary law. The book offers fresh insights on this neglected and misunderstood form of law.

Unwritten Laws is a wonderfully entertaining treasury ofmore than 500 rules, axioms and insights, each associatedwith a particular individual. None of the laws appears onthe Statute Book, yet they shape human affairs moreprofoundly than any Act of Parliament or by-law. AsCatt's Law states: No written law has ever been morebinding than ......