a comprehensive term, denoting the manners, ceremonies, and fashions of a people, which having turned into habit, and passed into general use, obtain the force of law. In this sense it implies such usages as, though voluntary at first, have yet by practice become necessary.

Custom is hence defined, both by lawyers and civilians, lex non scripta, a law or right not written, established by long usage and the consent of our ancestors; in which sense it stands opposed to the lex scripta, or the written law.