Le Common Law est une femme... et quelle femme !

Abstract

Sir Frederick Pollock (1845-1937), a leading English historian and a specialist of the Common Law, gave a series of lectures at the University of Columbia (New York) in 1911. Entitled The Genius of the Common Law, they initiated a female personification of this system of law which, to all appearances, has strongly influenced the way lawyers from both sides of the Atlantic think of the law, as is shown by a number of books, articles and speeches published since. Besides, the other main source of case law, Equity, is also referred to in terms of feminine metaphors. This feminisation of both Common Law and Equity has generated a legal rhetoric based on specific feminine figures. This article will analyse Sir Pollock’s lectures as well as certain aspects of Gary Watt’s Equity Stirring – The Story of Justice Beyond Law (2012) and will discuss the grammatical link that should or should not be made with these figures when we use the term “Common Law” in French.

Keywords

• Common Law
• Equity
• gender
• feminisation
• translation