ABSTRACT
Chapter VII. THE LAW AS 1vlAINTAINED BEFORE going on to discuss the part played by the elders or by other groups or by the village as a whole in the trying of cases, we must look briefly at those factors which make for the upholding of law and custom. As Malinowski has pointed out, the law in maintenance is both more important and more normal than the law in breach and must be carefully considered if the workings of any society are to be understood. From this angle the whole body of rules, customary, legal, conventional, ethical, which secure the necessary minimum of social conformity, are best considered as part of a whole series not divisible into water-tight compartments. We shall see when we consider the judicial function that in this society law is distinguished from custom in the sense that it is enforced, directly or indirectly, by the community, and that this distinction is recognised by the people. In this chapter, however, we are not concerned with this distinction.
