Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2024
Theories about law have focused upon: 1) law's integrative function in society, 2) its role in maintaining dominant group ascendancy, and 3) its utilization by subordinate groups as a “jurisprudence of insurgency.” It is argued here that these three functions of law intermingle in distinctive fashion from society to society, in part because of the different perceptions of law that dominant and subordinate groups hold. Vying subgroups have different beliefs about the degree to which law is: 1) manipulable, 2) manipulated, and 3) necessary. Such perceptions must be charted if intrasocietal politics is to be understood. This article traces perceptions of law in one highly inegalitarian relationship in one complex society—male-female relations in Morocco.