customary law
A shadowy provisional law born of human inertia and forebears’ negligence, filling gaps left by statutes and case law. It carries the unspoken consensus of society yet conveniently summons everything from local bad habits to aristocratic privileges. Sometimes it enforces anachronistic norms under the guise of tradition, its legitimacy resting on the ultimate ease of “because it has always been so.” Unwritten and uncodified, yet everyone is expected to “know” it like a secret weapon.