On her book Witches, Wife Beaters, and Whores: Common Law and Common Folk in Early America
Cover Interview of January 22, 2012
Lastly
Early settlers created a legal culture that crossed boundaries and time. Shared values, embedded in traditions that migrated across the Atlantic and adapted to conditions on the North American continent, stabilized communities and unified immigrants. This evolving legal culture peaceably Americanized those within its reach—yet, paradoxically, within a context of conflict. Nevertheless, the disputes that brought individuals into the courtroom were generally restrained by the formalities of that venue.
Moreover, if legal contests were eventually fought in legal arenas, it is nothing less than remarkable how often such matters were initiated by ordinary people going about their business on an ordinary day. Samuel Banister fell behind in his rent, the sheriff came to evict him and Banister declined to leave the house. Instead, he shot and killed the sheriff’s assistant, a man Banister only meant to threaten. The implications of property ownership, debtor laws, tenant rights, and live-in servants all contributed to this tragic story.
The legal aspects of the tale may recede to the background in the interest of good storytelling, but they are integral to the narrative nonetheless. So too are the unknown players who move the story forward. By bringing them to the foreground, Witches, Wife Beaters, and Whores addresses the role of common folk in early America.
Those debtors, tenants, and servants played as much of a part in the creation of a legal culture as did the legislators who wrote the laws. By obeying such laws, common folk legitimized the authority of those above them. By circumventing the system and seeking justice or punishment through private negotiations, common folk created common law. I suspect they appreciated the empowerment that the legal process offered, even if they were unaware of how it came to be or that they would be the vehicles by which the rule of law would be Americanized and perpetuated.
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
Lastly
Early settlers created a legal culture that crossed boundaries and time. Shared values, embedded in traditions that migrated across the Atlantic and adapted to conditions on the North American continent, stabilized communities and unified immigrants. This evolving legal culture peaceably Americanized those within its reach—yet, paradoxically, within a context of conflict. Nevertheless, the disputes that brought individuals into the courtroom were generally restrained by the formalities of that venue.
Moreover, if legal contests were eventually fought in legal arenas, it is nothing less than remarkable how often such matters were initiated by ordinary people going about their business on an ordinary day. Samuel Banister fell behind in his rent, the sheriff came to evict him and Banister declined to leave the house. Instead, he shot and killed the sheriff’s assistant, a man Banister only meant to threaten. The implications of property ownership, debtor laws, tenant rights, and live-in servants all contributed to this tragic story.
The legal aspects of the tale may recede to the background in the interest of good storytelling, but they are integral to the narrative nonetheless. So too are the unknown players who move the story forward. By bringing them to the foreground, Witches, Wife Beaters, and Whores addresses the role of common folk in early America.
Those debtors, tenants, and servants played as much of a part in the creation of a legal culture as did the legislators who wrote the laws. By obeying such laws, common folk legitimized the authority of those above them. By circumventing the system and seeking justice or punishment through private negotiations, common folk created common law. I suspect they appreciated the empowerment that the legal process offered, even if they were unaware of how it came to be or that they would be the vehicles by which the rule of law would be Americanized and perpetuated.