On the Status of Custom as a Historical Source of Law—The Historical Flow of the Pluralistic Sources of Private Law as a Clue

Abstract

Private law norms emerge from a self-generated order and follow the rules of proper behavior. No matter how advanced the development of lawmaking is, it is difficult to cover all aspects of citizens’ private life, which is the root of the emergence of plural sources of private law. Civil custom is a rule formed spontaneously in social interactions, and Article 10 of the Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China, following the General Principles of the Civil Law, once again recognizes the status of civil custom as a source of law. Therefore, the present study was designed to analyze the supporting basis from the perspective of legal history.