A close examination of Canadian law suggests that there are some laws which are in sync with social customs and other laws which are not and are apart from the social consensus. Some examples of laws which are in sync with our customs are “The Indian Act” and the Yee Clung case, and for some which are not are pornography and homosexual marriages. Customs are defined as practices and patterns of behaviour which society orders itself around, it could be written (codified as a law) or unwritten. For instance, Durkheim would say customs are a reflection of the collective consciousness, not written but seen as normal behaviour.
Historically Canadian laws that can be seen to be in sync with our social customs have been “The Indian Act” and the Yee Clung case. The Indian Act is a law in historical context which has reflected the European ideals for assimilating Aboriginals into Canadian societies. The Government ha
d banned many customs of the Aboriginals because they where not congruent with the Canadian societies customs. Some things banned where Potlatches and marijuana due to the fact that the Canadian Government wanted to spread their values and assimilate the Native people. Constantine Backhouse stated in his article that the Yee Clun case reflected the impact of law on individuals who emigrated from China over the course of the 19 to 20th centuries. Negative stereotypes of Chinese immigrants such as opium smokers, gamblers and so forth reflected law or court rulings to regulate Chinese form participating socially and economically in the community. Yee Clung was a Chinese immigrant whose right to hire white women was rejected by Saskatchewan’s white women’s labour law in 1912. Protestant moral reformers also joined the campaign to limit Yee Clung’s right to hire white women. This showed how strongly social customs c
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