Chaos, Confusion And The Beginning Of English Law

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Module 3: Chaos, Confusion and the Beginnings of English Law Question 3: Early English law sought not only to deter crime and immoral behaviour but to exert social control, particularly over lesser mortals, nothing changes. Discuss. It is true that some aspects of early English law is still in practice today, although it is not as violent or irrational. Some differences that are still punishable today are: Murder, Rape, Abduction, Robbery, Theft, Damage to property and Assault. However, Adultery is no longer a criminal offence and slaves are no longer used due to social acceptability. An example of early English law exerting social control while enforcing the law is, “Any person who tried to escape pursuit or to act in self defence could be cut down irrespective of the magnitude of the suspected offence or the age or sex of the suspected offender.” This is something that would happen today if a suspect were to flee the scene of a crime. Another example is that the law then and the law now is a, “…duty to ensure justice and maintain peace.” This is a good example of social control as although justice can and has been forceful and sometimes may seem harsh, if it maintains peace in the world that we know then it is doing its job. On the other hand, early English law is incredibly different from the law we have now in exerting social control. In early English law, “…men were not equal before the law, and even less so in the case of women…” whereas, now, regardless of sex, age, race or social status all individuals are tried and punished the same depending on the crime that each individual had committed. Also in early English law, fines were also determined by social status, the higher up in the social hierarchy they were, the less they would have to pay. They also didn’t have maintained prisons back then due to the king’s decision not to as, “He did not have the

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