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Sociological Jurisprudence

Sociological jurisprudence lays emphasis on social aspect of law than on its abstract content. They study law as a social phenomenon. Accordingly law became a synthesis of philosophy, history etc. and began to be understood in terms functions. Sociological jurisprudence mainly dealt with topics such as social origin of law and legal institutions; impact of law on various aspects of society; the task which law should perform in society and are attempt to find out some social criteria to test the validity of laws.

Sociological jurisprudence is also known as functional school for the fundamental tenet of this school is that we cannot understand what a thing is unless we study what it does. All those jurists who consider law as an instrument of social change and social control are designated as sociological jurists.By later half of the 19th century and in 20th century the study of law began as a process of social progresses social change and social development. Hence law became an instrument of social engineering.