Law as ritual: Evoking an ideal order

Abstract

In the modern state most laws enshrine practical social norms in a way that everyone can be aware of. Laws take a legalistic form, as generalizing rules and abstract categories. But turning to historical and ethnographic examples, we find legalistic rules that do not bear a neat resemblance to the details and disputes of quotidian life. This raises questions about their purposes and effects. Some of the earliest laws ever made—in Mesopotamia, Israel, and Rome—consisted of ostensibly practical rules, yet they evidently enshrined grander social visions. In this article I examine the connections between the practical and the symbolic. An analogy with ritual performance suggests that even partial sets of laws may connect people with visions of justice and order, thereby garnering loyalty and helping to legitimize the aspirations of the law-makers.