ABSTRACT
Reasonableness, as a concept employed in modern legal systems, is both elusive and multifaceted. Where the word reasonable is actually written into the text of the statute, even appellate judges are under a constraint to consider the matter. The legal system, as well as the other branches of government, is sensitive to public opinion, albeit for different reasons. A legal system is no more value-free than any other social system, which means that the sciences that create these systems are also not value-free. This assertion, quite categorically, includes legal science. The modern system is as much concerned with its own survival as it is with its function, which means, among other things, that a functional explanation of a legal system's modus operandi is simplistic and insufficient. By placing the modern system in a comparative and cross-cultural context, it is possible to see how the significance of the reasonable man, or simply reasonableness, has changed over time.
