Why We Need Laws

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its effectiveness as a deterrent of crime. Therefore, modern law has taken a more passive role as a medium for holding people accountable for their actions.
Voltaire once said that “a multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.” Historically, laws have been created in an attempt to correct perceived problems within a society. An epidemic of adultery must have occurred before laws forbidding such activity came into existence. Several affluent members of society must have been robbed before anti-theft laws were passed. Undoubtedly a number of politicians were shot and killed before gun-control laws were believed to be necessary. For the most part laws are created out of fear of becoming victimized. As illustrated in the preceding examples, most laws are designed specifically to address crimes in which the distinction between an offender and a victim is clear. However, laws against so-called ...

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consanguinity within which marriages are declared by law to be incestuous and void, who intermarry with each other, or who commit fornication or adultery with each other, are punishable by imprisonment in the state prison.” Lastly, the Eighth Commandment, “thou shalt not steal,” directly correlates to California Penal Code 484, which states that “every person who shall feloniously steal, take, carry, lead, or drive away the personal property of another… obtains credit and thereby fraudulently gets or obtains possession of money, or property or obtains the labor or service of another, is guilty of theft….” In each of the aforementioned examples, ...

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