Law and Social Change

LAW AND SOCIAL
CHANGE
GAYATHRI ASHISH NAIR
10627
LAW
 Blackstone defined law as, “Law as rule of conduct, prescribed by

the supreme power in the State, commanding which is right and
prohibiting what is wrong. Jurisprudentially, law consists of rules
prescribed by society for the governance of human conduct.”
 Law - pervasive element of every social institution
 Law is not merely the formal official rules adopted by legislatures,
courts and executives nor solely the procedures of those institutions.
 Law is also the practices of governance and resistance
 Three main organs bring about changes in the law
1. Specialised legislative organs
2. Specialised law-applying organs
3. Law enforcing and law-using organs and bodies
 United States - the power of Congress to legislate is limited by the
Constitution
 England- No rigid constitution limiting the powers of the central
legislature
 House of Lords in England – Supreme court of U.S- Role of
Judiciary
 Justice P N Bhagwati, “It is the judge who infuses life blood into the
dry skeleton provided by the legislature and creates a living
organism appropriate and adequate to meet the needs of the
society”.
 Law origins from the society, gets its evolution and development
through society.
 The progress of every society is dependent upon the proper
application of law according to the needs of the society
SOCIETY
 Society is always undergoing processes of change
 Changes in the society - various social institutions, roles and status
definitions, accepted ideologies, value patterns, pattern variables and value-
profiles.
 Social change can be initiated by various factors
 Society consists of a large number of social institutions and components
 Social change in most cases begins in some of these institutions or
elements- influence other institutions and elements until the whole of
society changes.
 All the schools of jurisprudence from the natural to the post-modernism
directly or indirectly connected with the function of law in society.
CONCEPT OF SOCIAL CHANGE
 “Change" is of two types: continuous or evolutionary and

discontinuous or revolutionary.
 The concept of social change- introduced by August Comte.
 “Societies progress through a series of predictable stages based on
the development of human knowledge”.
 Social change is a term sociologists use to describe usually large-
scale transformations
 Examples- shift from rural agrarian, feudal or traditional societies to
modern, industrial societies, the emergence of capitalism,
democratization, and most recently globalization
THEORIES OF SOCIAL CHANGE
1. Evolutionary Change - change is the characteristic feature of human society

 Change is inevitable or it is ‘natural’
 Infinite improvement in the next stage over the preceding one
 Example- evolution of communication technology, evolution of human rights
 Charles Darwin – simple to complex human beings
 Herbert Spencer - forerunner of this evolutionary thought
There are three main types of evolutionary theory
A) Theory of Unilinear Evolution
 Change always proceeds toward a predestined goal in a unilinear fashion.
 Society gradually moves to an even higher state of civilisation
 Comte proposed a unilinear theory of evolution
B) Universal Theory of Evolution
 every society does not necessarily go through the same fixed stages of development
 Culture of mankind, taken as a whole, has followed a definite line of evolution
C) Multilinear Theory of Evolution
 Identification of different sequential patterns for different culture or types of cultures
 Change can occur in several ways
 It does not inevitably lead in the same direction.
 Example- Evolution of family law
2. Cycle Theory
 Oswald Spengler and Arnold J. Toynbee
 Societies and civilisations change according to cycles of rise, decline and fall
3. Conflict Theory of Social Change
 The influence of Marx and Marxism
 Class struggle was the driving force of social change
 Conflict is a necessary condition for change
5. Technological Theory
 Any change in technology - corresponding change in the arrangement of social
relationships
 Direct and indirect consequences
 Change is directly related to mechanisation
LAW AND SOCIAL CHANGE
 Roscoe Pound stated, “Laws must be stable and yet cannot stand still.”
 The relation between law and social change can be described in
1. Historical context
2. Inseparability
3. Common goals and aspirations
 Two schools of thought
1. First, the law serves the needs of society
2. Second, the law creates social change

 As regards the question of how much legal rules are adjusted to the conditions of
a particular place and time, three basic situations are possible
(a) they are well adjusted to the conditions of the place and time
(b) They "lag behind" the time (inertia)
(c) they are ahead of it (anticipation)
 Difference between actual social behavior and the behavior demanded by the legal
norm
 The concept of lag applies to law and social change
 More novel- problem of the lag of society after changes in the law
 Role of law vis-A-vis social change leads to distinguish between the direct and the indirect
aspects of the role of law.
 Direct aspects
• Statutes and Legislations
• Example- Prohibition of Polygamy
 Indirect Aspects
• Social change by shaping various social institutions, which in turn have a direct impact on
society
• Example- Compulsory Education
 In some cases, the emphasis is more on the direct and less on the indirect impact of social
change, while in other cases the opposite is true
• Existence of a patent law
CHALLENGES TO LAW AND SOCIAL
CHANGE
1) Resistance
2) Implementation and Enforcement
3) Political Interference
4) Cultural Sensitivities
Examples
 Domestic Violence
 Dowry Prohibition Law
 Caste based discrimination
INDIA – LAW AND SOCIAL CHANGE
 Social changes through Legislations
 The practice of sati was declared illegal in 1829
 The Hindu Widow Remarriage Act of 1856 legalized the remarriage of the Hindu widows.
 Special provisions under Article 371A of the Constitution have been made for the State of
Nagaland to safeguard the cultural identity of the Nagas
 Kesavananda Bharti v. State of Kerala, the Supreme Court observed that, “no generation
has monopoly of wisdom nor has it a right to place fetters on future generations to mould
the machinery of Government according to their requirements. If no provisions were made
for the amendment of the Constitution, the people would have recourse to extra
Constitutional method like revolution to the change of the Constitution.”
 Law is a dynamic concept; it must be changed according to the needs of the society
CONCLUSION
 Nothing is permanent, but change is permanent

 Social change and changes in the law are constant and interacting processes
 The high rate of social change - challenges the skills and abilities of statesmen,
lawyers and social scientists
 Problems of great significance for an understanding of the role of law in modern
societies.
 These aspects include new modes for changing the law, lag in the development of
law behind social change, the use of law as a device to induce social change and
others.

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LAW AND SOCIAL

 Blackstone defined law as, “Law as rule of conduct, prescribed by

 “Change" is of two types: continuous or evolutionary and

1. Evolutionary Change - change is the characteristic feature of human society

1. First, the law serves the needs of society

2. Second, the law creates social change

 Nothing is permanent, but change is permanent

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