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Hopper, H. (2004). Kato Shidzue: A Japanese feminist. New York: The Moral Function
Longman. of Contracts
Malthus, T. R. (1914). An essay on population (Vol. 1). London: J. M.
Dent and Sons. The legal scholar Harold J. Berman wrote that the West-
McLaren, A., & McLaren, A. T. (1997). The bedroom and the state: The ern ideal of contract law began with the theory that “a
changing practices and policies of contraception and abortion in
Canada, 1880–1997. Toronto, Canada: Oxford University Press. promise created an obligation to God” (Berman 1986,
Musallam, B. F. (1983). Sex and society in Islam: Birth control before the 112).Not only does the canon law of the Jewish,Islamic,
nineteenth century. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. and Christian faiths affirm this idea, nearly all cultures
Nueshul, P. (1998). Marie C. Stopes and the popularization of birth con-
trol technology. Journal of History of Technology, 39, 245–272. have a form of contract premised on the moral notion that
Porter, R., & Hall, L. (1995). The facts of life:The creation of sexual knowl- promises are to be kept. In traditional India and China,
edge in Britain, 1650–1950. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Raina, B. L. (1990). Planning family in India: Prevedic times to early contracts were often adjudicated in terms of moral prin-
1950s. New Delhi, India: Commonwealth Publishers. ciples (dharma in Hinduism; li in Confucianism); a con-
Ramirez de Arellano, A., & Seipp, C. ( 1983). Colonialism, Catholicism, tract which violated general rules of morality or equity
and contraception: A history of birth control in Puerto Rico. Chapel
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. could be ruled invalid,even if the acts were otherwise licit.
Ramusack, B. N. (1989). Embattled advocates: The debates on birth con- Roman law mandated that contracts be“clothed,” that is,
trol in India, 1920–1940. Journal of Women’s History, 1(2), 34–64.
Smith, A. (2002). Better dead than pregnant: The colonization of native parties must have had a tangible purpose or reason
women’s reproductive health. In J. Silliman & A. Bhattacharjee (Eds.), (causa) for entering into a contract.Therefore,Roman law
Policing the national body: Race, gender and criminalization. Cam- emphasized the binding nature of the promises made
bridge, MA: South End Press.
Soloway, R. (1982). Birth control and the population question in England. between parties, and in determining the legality of a con-
Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. tract, jurists in the Roman law tradition privileged the
ends, or the reasons for creating the contract over the
means by which the contract was created.Medieval canon-
ists added an element of Christian morality to contract law
Contract Law which held that the final purpose of a contract,regardless
of the intermediate expectations of the parties, must con-
ontract law is the body of law which regulates and form to moral principles. The Civil Code of Napoleon
Cenforces promises and exchanges, for either imme- (1804) mandated that a valid contract was one to which
diate or future performance, between two or more con- parities voluntarily agreed,and that was done for licit pur-
senting parties and provides legal remedies if one or more poses; the form of the contract was secondary to the ends.
of the parties break these agreements. As such, contract In Anglo-American common law, principles of equity
law fulfills a moral, social, and economic function. The applied as well, and the doctrine of unjust enrichment
moral function of contract law is rooted in the premise meant that courts could order quasi-contract actions,
that promises made are to be kept, which is almost uni- which are court ordered adjustments to contracts that are
versally recognized in customary law, as well as to vary- meant to restore equity between the parties, to recover
ing extents in positive law. Socially, contract law is a sums from those unjustly enriched on behalf of plaintiffs.
means for regulating and defining social relationships,
such as in the case of marriage contracts, or contracts The Social Function
between different social orders or castes. Economically, of Contracts
contract law facilitates commerce by providing a form of For most of the history of traditional China and Japan,
legal guarantee of remedies for broken contracts, which there was no formal contract law, although other laws,
facilitated the development of long-term trade, as well as such as imperial or feudal laws,could be used to seek legal
the use of negotiable instruments, such as letters of credit protection and remedies in contract disputes. Moreover,
and bills of lading. customary law in China and Japan served the purposes of