ABSTRACT
As should be apparent, then, the existence of a two-way or reciprocal relationship between law and social change is a defining component of the law and society canon. Friedman (2004a) likens this reciprocal relationship to the process and aftermath of building a bridge. Suppose there is a community, he says, on the banks of a wide river that is serviced only by a slow ferry. The residents put pressure on their government to build a bridge, and the bridge eventually gets built. Now that traffic easily goes across the bridge everyday, the community begins to change. Some people begin to live on the other side of the river, and more people, whichever side they live on, begin to commute to jobs on the other side. The ferry stops operating, and the bridge becomes so dominant a feature of the residents’ existence that it “affects their behavior, their way of thinking, their expectations, their way of life” (p. 16). It becomes difficult for them to even imagine life before the bridge was built. The bridge, Freidman observes, is a metaphor for law and the legal system. The bridge was built because of social forces and social change-in this case citizen pressure on government-and, once built, “it began to exert an influence on behavior and attitudes” (p. 16). Similarly, law may change because of changes and pressures in the larger society, and, once it does change, it then begins to influence behavior and attitudes. Thus, although this chapter discusses the influence of social change on law and that of law on social change separately, the reciprocal relationship suggested by the bridge metaphor should be kept in mind.
