122 Political Theory: The Relationship of Man and the Statedevelop a modus operandi to facilitate achieving one of their
important needs, the need for predictability. Imagine some of our
earliest ancestors walking along a path towards one another.
How many times there must have been accidents, conflicts, or
wasted time and effort determining who should move aside, and
which way each should move to facilitate passage. Without the
force of law, without any necessary requirement to do so, the
custom of moving to the right to pass, developed through
common consent and mutual agreement. After a while, the
custom began to have the force of law, i.e., those who passed on
the left were considered to be in error if an accident occurred.
Eventually states enacted political laws to conform to those
which had their origin in custom. Many laws which have their
origins in custom evolved for very good and necessary reasons,
and were meant to make living in a social setting better, and in
some cases, possible.
Religion is another source of law. Religious laws deal with
moral ideals which men as value-setting animals require as
guides to the good life. Just as law based on custom has a good
and necessary basis for enactment, often the religious laws
evolve from man’s needs. The concept of adultery as being a
moral wrong is not frivolous. The importance of the family as a
stabilizing force in society is a generally accepted premise.
Adultery is an obvious threat to that stability and the initial moral
prohibition has great implications for political law. In most
societies adultery has been a violation of moral and political law.
Even in this age of no-fault divorce, adultery is still considered
grounds for divorce, and in contested cases the adulterer, accord
ing to law, is liable.
Judicial interpretation is a source of law which emanates from
the decisions of third parties in cases where the issues are not
clear. In America, judicial decisions are attempts by the courts
to clarify and resolve conflicts with our most basic law, (the
Constitution) and to determine the intent of the framers of the
law. A simple example of how the concept of judicial interpre
tation works follows. Consider the problem of the apple tree and
the fallen apples. The owner of the tree considers, reasonably,
the apples to be his. The next-door neighbor, into whose yard the
apples fall, considers reasonably, the apples to be his. “My tree,
my apples.” “My yard, my apples.” Can the two positions ever