The Realistic Possibilities of the Social Co-governance of Law and Folk Customs-from the Perspective of Structural Functionalism
The pluralistic co-governance of law and folk customs should be a necessary option for the governance of social rules.In the view of structural functionalism,the premise of functional coupling between law or folk customs and other subsystems(political or economic subsystems)is that the con-ditions for its existence are provided by itself or other subsystems of social structure(political or eco-nomic subsystems).The law changes from the one-dimensional value law to the contractual positivist law,and the national coercive force is not the constituent element but the implementation guarantee.The law is mainly characterized by formal rationalization and universal application,and is inherent in the contractual society,while folk customs are original,special and harmonious,embedded in the nar-row cooperative society,and guaranteed by the recognition of value and the pressure of public opinion.Contemporary Chinese society is neither a contractual society nor a cooperative society,but a mixture of contractual and cooperative factors.The governance of social rules in China should turn to the dual co-governance of law and folk customs.