ABSTRACT
The various difficulties created by the common law’s long-standing custom of setting up and reiterating a binary and mutually exclusive opposition between private and public law are increasingly being recognised by, amongst others, jurists and feminist writers. This chapter discusses provisional conclusions from, the nature and limits of two contrasting models of studying property law. It shows how these models replicate a series of underlying dichotomies, not least that between private/public law. The chapter explores the issues raised by a deceptively simple and preliminary question, namely: “What classification should be given to a subject that addresses the legal regulation of those relationships which the law itself defines as property?” It addresses the dichotomous character of the debate between two of the main models for studying property law. These dichotomies include a stark conflict between the apparently mutually exclusive presuppositions of a private law model and a law in context model.
