The Evolution of the Law, as a Mode for Regulating Everyday Life, from an Ecuadorian Perspective

Abstract

This document refers to Law’s evolution as a tool for regulating social life during the different historical ages—in the Mesopotamian, Greek, Early Medieval and Inca times, and Roman civilizations, and their successors in Law: of the medieval, modern and contemporary receptions. Recognizing the reasons that trigger the
change of perspective is this analysis’s main objective and, from said analysis, detailing its historical transformation process, considering that the various ways of doing and understanding the law have affected
the social, economic and institutional factors. This research’s main motivation is to reflect and identify relevant Historical concepts that are manifested in the way of producing and exercising Law, and that in
primitive moments are related to religious extension, and even to the legitimization of social classes. Finally, although Law is characterized by a somewhat changing nature, it can only be understood as a historical reality, a consequence of a past that, more than ever, links it in a similar way in the globalized world—to concepts that, from Rome, were developed in Western Europe.

KEY WORDS: history of Law, social rules, society, legal system, civilizations.

JEL CODE: B25, D52