The rule of law in Montenegro is no longer a fiction, it is a reality. The consistent application of laws, which sanction blood feuds and theft, enabled the direction of society's energy in the tight against Turkey and the further consolidation of the state. The family is the basic social core, which physically and morally continues the Montenegrin warrior society. Tribunals, as a body of government, regularly intervene when the relations in a family, which is uplifted to a high degree of protection by the Legislation, are disturbed. The General Law prevented the easy dissolving of marriages, severally punishes the kidnapping of girls and married women.
Punitive measures are incomparably more sever towards women for adultery than towards men.
The interest of the male is always above that of the woman. In disrupted marriages, the spouses are placed under the supervision of the Senate, while in cases of lesser disturbed relations they are supervised by the Clan Captains Tribunal. The tribunal practice assumes an elastic position and, as of the mid eighteen sixties, moves more towards the equality of the spouses in rights and obligations. Montenegro could not enter into reforms without assuring regular sources of financing the needs of the government. In respect to payments, the clan either expresses political obedience to the central authorities.