Citation

Vance RB, Wynne W. Am. J. Sociol. 1934; 39(4): 483-492.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1934, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/216491

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The conflict between folk ways and state ways in the "unwritten law defense" clearly shows opposing folk and legal rationalizations. In the effort to preserve for the aggrieved individual the right of private vengeance, the folk has opposed the concept of the sanctity of human life with the concept of the inviolability of the home, the property concept of marriage, and the concept of the husband's sovereignty. To the folk doctrine of justifiable homicide the law opposes cold-blooded doctrine of agency. This legal doctrine has given way before the folk view at three points: (1) by an abrogation of the paramour's common law right of self-defense, (2) by statutory enactments which place justifiable homicide under the rule of "reason and justice," (3) and by its enactment into law. Moreover, juries continue to free those who slay "in defense of the home" by substituting folk rationalizations for the law of the land.