The prejudices of the people are far stronger than those of the privileged classes; they are far more vulgar; and they are far more dangerous, becaus… - Henry James Sumner Maine

The family was based, not upon actual relationship, but upon power, and the husband acquired over his wife the same despotic power which the father had over his children.

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.

The delusion that Democracy, when it has once had all things put under its feet, is a progressive form of government, lies deep in the convictions of a particular political school, but there can be no delusion grosser.