Every society has to answer the same question: what happens when someone breaks a rule? The whole answer is called social control, and anthropologists sort it by who does the sanctioning. Informal sanctions are diffuse — anyone may apply them, no rule is written down, and they work through reputation. Formal law is organized — a recognized authority applies a penalty, and its right to do so is not in dispute. Read each scene, make the call, and watch where it lands on the spectrum.
Who applies the sanction?
diffuseorganized
Authority—
Universal—
Obligatio—
Sanction—
Leopold Pospisil argued that a practice is law when four things are present at once: an authority whose decision the parties accept, an intention of universal application to like cases, obligatio (it fixes the rights and duties of living people toward each other), and a sanction. Watch how many light up.