This year, for work purposes I've been doing a lot of legal research, and because I'm also used to writing and creating content on Hive you'd be sure to come across many of the interesting things I consider worth sharing.
Right now I've stumbled into another that I'm certain would be a great food for thought for any history or sociology enthusiast.
Growing up I used to read a lot of books and one of my favourite authors was George Bernard Shaw. In his book Androcles and the Lion he wrote a very lengthy preface where he argued at length about Christianity and Jesus. He titled it:
PREFACE TO ANDROCLES AND THE LION:
ON THE PROSPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY
He made so many thoughts provoking points therein, in typical George Bernard Shaw style, and the main thing that stuck with me was the argument that Jesus Christ was most likely not real but just a symbol of evolution from harsh laws to more fair laws.
As we all probably know, in Christianity Jesus Christ is said to be the son of God who came down to the Earth and reduced the harshness of the old laws God made with the Israelites and simply encapsulated it in the Golden Rule:
Do to others as you would want them to do to you.
And
Love your neighbour as yourself
He was more merciful and didn't want people to follow the laws of God too strictly. He said "the law was made for man, man was not made for the law".
An adulterous woman was going to be stoned but he intervened. He wasn't strictly against working on the Sabbath day if necessary. Etc.
Shaw said that even if Jesus never existed (or never got invented) the ideas Jesus had were just evidence of civilization and that the world was coming from a place of harsh laws to more liberal laws.
While I was researching into the development of The English Common Laws and Equity everything Shaw said in his book, which I had read ages ago all came flying back into my head. Because evolution from harsher laws to more fair and liberal laws is exactly the point of English laws too!
For those that don't know, English Common Law and Equity are the basis for the laws of too many countries in America and Africa. Almost, if not all, the countries Britain colonized have The English Common Laws and Equity as the foundation of their entire judicial system.
Countries like Canada, USA, Nigeria, etc.
The English Common Law was simply the laws in England, while Equity simply means "fairness" and it is something that developed later on to subside the harshness of the common law.
When the courts in old England have judgements and the judgements where too harsh the aggrieved party goes to the King to beg for mercy, because the King had the ultimate power. The King showed mercy sometimes or not.
Sometimes when the King was not able to hear their case the King would direct them to the Lord Chancellor who was like the King's Chief of Staff, adviser, and the King's conscience.
The Chancellor would then try to help the aggrieved parties. With time all the rules the Chancellor came up with to help parties in certain situations came to be known as Equity. With more time the rules were now added to the laws of England so that the Courts would apply these rules and the law wouldn't be so harsh.
Some situations include the following:
• According to the Common Law, if you give someone your property as collateral for a loan, onc you don't pay on the agreed date your property was gone. Equity came and decided that was not fair, that if you can still pay not long after the expiry date you can get your property back. Equity also said you can use the same property to get a different loan from someone else to pay the loan you could not pay.
• According to the Common Law if you don't do your part of a contract you would pay "damages" to the other party and nothing more. But Equity came up and said if the other party don't want payment but insists that you do your part, then you would have to do your part (The doctrine of Specific Performance).
• According to the Common Law, if your friend dies, for example, and your friend gives you his properties to take care of and use the rent and other money you make from the properties to take care of his wife and kids until his kids become of age to take the properties (This is called a Trust), if anything happens to the properties while under your care you would have to pay for it whether the thing that happened was your fault or not. But Equity came up and said if you can show that it wasn't your fault and that you did all you could, as a human being, to protect the properties then you would not be forced to pay for it.
I'm sure you get it.
In the earlier part of human history the world was harsher. It was ruled by predators, but as time went by men killed these predators or these predators went extinct, or something.
The men who lived at this time only knew violence and brute force, and were more like savages. As time went by and civilization grew by the day the cruel practices men had kept reducing until what we have today.
That is why if you look at the world, on average, cruelty has continuously been on the decline from the dark ages till today. Conquests, genocides, child marriages, slavery, etc are not the order of the day like they used to be. Whatever we have now is mild compared to centuries ago.
This general decline of cruelty among the human race is the reason for fairer laws whether in religion or the secular spaces. Upon investigation into different facets of life it is so interesting to take note of.
The End
Hi there, buy my novella Professor Otagburuagu. It promises to be thoroughly entertaining and intellectually stimulating. Written by myself and illustrated by Scandinavian artist @ katharsisdrill. You can get it from me for just 4 HBD.
You can also order the hard copy from anywhere in the world via this link:
https://katharsisdrill.art/the-katharsisdrill-shop/professor-otagburuagu/
Thank you!
I love how you connected Shaw’s ideas with the development of English law. It all makes so much sense. The way laws and even religion have become more fair over time is something I hadn’t thought about like this before.
🙂 🤝
@galenkp, I'm sorry for anything I may have done to get you pissed off with me, please forgive me. Is there anything you might want me to do before you would be appeased?