中国现正处在一个社会转型思想多元的特殊历史时期,新旧观念冲突异常激烈。在建设中国法治文明的过程中,我们绝不能脱离中国的社会土壤而空谈法治建设。法律的社会规范功能决定它必须回归到社会现实生活中,规范人们的行为、引导人们的价值取向。对于民族习惯法我们之所以关注,并不在于民族习惯法本身,而在于对当代中国社会转型期的中国法治之路的关心。 China is now in a special historical period with diverse social transformations, and the conflicts between the old and the new are extremely fierce. In the process of building a civilization of the rule of law in China, we must never talk of the construction of the rule of law out of China’s social soil. The social normative function of law determines that it must return to the real life of society, standardize people’s behavior and guide people’s value orientation. The reason why we pay attention to the national customary law lies not in the customary law of nations, but in the concern about the road to rule of law in China in the social transformation of contemporary China.