in the Courts of the Madras Presidency. 21 



often materially affected the decisions of those, who were too 

 lazy or too unlearned to make up their minds for themselves. 

 The authority of the Pandits upon points not laid down in 

 the ordinary text-books has been generally accepted as con- 

 clusive. Occasionally, too, the Privy Council, with happy 

 audacity, has remodelled the law which it professed only to 

 declare. 



A few instances will make all this clearer. 



Probably every people in its passage to civilisation, has 

 gone through a stage in which all rights have assumed a 

 corporate form. Whether this arose from the necessity for 

 union to resist violence, or because the earliest conceptions 

 of rights were drawn from the paternal government of a 

 family, it is unnecessary to consider here. The fact is un- 

 doubted. As Mr. H. S. Maine remarks, " Ancient law, it 

 must be again repeated, knows next to nothing of individu- 

 als. It is concerned not with Individuals but with Fami- 

 lies, not with single human beings, but with groups." 



India presents the most perfect and interesting example of 

 this stage of civilisation. Not to mention the village com- 

 munities, each of which is a little republic, complete in 

 itself, the normal state of property here is to be vested in a 

 family ; and not in an individual. The individuals die, 

 but the family continues. Not only does the family 

 system exist in India, but it exhibits three distinct phases, 

 each of which evidently marks an onward stage in the 

 transition to individual rights. In Malabar, the family forms 

 a Taraw&d, or united community, whose entire property is 

 managed by its senior member. The property cannot be 

 dealt with, or encumbered by any of the members except 

 the manager, nor even by him, except for the benefit of the 

 family. No member can break up the tarawad by enforcing 

 a division, and any land which he may acquire by his indivi- 



