Understanding the evolution of law in society
Society has evolved and so did the laws governing it. In the highly developed states of the modern world the citizen is cared for and governed by laws from the cradle to the grave. In fact, even before his birth, the citizen is protected by law, for instance the laws pertaining to abortion protects the fetus. Similarly, after the demise of the citizen the law sees to it that his will is enacted. So a brief overview of the main theories and concepts that underlie such a pervasive element of our life should be of a great interest.
The layman associates the word law to different entities, depending on the context. For instance the word law is sometime used to refer to a system that includes the government, police, the courts; and it is said that the law will catch up with the criminals. Sometimes it is used to refer to a process and thereby, only the courts and the judicial proceedings are implies, and it is common to heat “let the law follow its due course”. And some other times it only means the written corpus of law, and it is often overheard, “what law is applicable in these circumstances”.

In the broadest sense the word law means a ‘set of rules’, such as the scientific laws that are working sets of rules that have been proven true by laboratory experiments and is contrasted with theories and hypotheses, that are respectively, sets of rules partially proven by experiments or not yet tested. However, formal law is more of a sociological phenomenon, as it governs the social interactions between humans, and is more appropriately contrasted with folkways and mores . Folkways are such social rules that if not obeyed may bring informal sanctions and inconveniences as the fear that the spirits are going to haunt the one who desecrates a tomb. Mores are social rules if violated may bring about informal social sanctions as swearing the one who rudely jumped the queue. Whereas, laws are the formal rules of society if