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The movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract.
— Henry James Sumner Maine
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HJ
Henry James Sumner Maine
anthropologist, legal historian, historian, law professor, sociologist, jurist, writer, barrister
1822 – 1888
Sir Henry James Sumner Maine,, was a British Whig comparative jurist and historian. He is famous for the thesis outlined in his book Ancient Law that law and society developed "from status to contract." According to the thesis, in the ancient world individuals were tightly bound by status dealing with(in) a particular group while in the modern one, in which individuals are viewed as autonomous agents, they are free to make contracts and form associations with whomever they choose. Because of this thesis, Maine can be seen as one of the forefathers of modern legal anthropology, legal history and sociology of law.
All Quotes by Henry James Sumner Maine
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So great is the ascendancy of the Law of Actions in the infancy of Courts of Justice, that substantive law has at first the look of being gradually secreted in the interstices of procedure; and the early lawyer can only see the law through the envelope of its technical forms.
— Henry James Sumner Maine
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Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves in this world which is not Greek in its origin.
— Henry James Sumner Maine
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It is true that the aristocracies seem to have abused their monopoly of legal knowledge; and at all events their exclusive possession of the law was a formidable impediment to the success of those popular movements which began to be universal in the western world.
— Henry James Sumner Maine