Entry
Entries A-Z
Subject index
Maine, Henry
Henry Sumner Maine (1821–88) was a nineteenth-century legal scholar who argued that, in premodern societies, rights and duties were attached to inherited positions within tribes and families (a hierarchy of status), while in modern societies, rights and duties were distributed more efficiently—in terms of both economic productivity and personal liberty—as a result of free agreements (contracts) made between individuals. This was a particular example of his more general belief that both human societies and human legal systems evolved in phases that were intimately interconnected.
Born in Bedfordshire, England, Maine was educated at the Christ’s Hospital School in Sussex (1829–40) and at Cambridge University (1840–44). In 1845, he became a junior tutor at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and he was later Regius Professor of Civil Law within the ...
- Loading...