What is the Function of Law?

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To punish free-riders comes to mind as does to protecting the Weak and consolidating power.These things to seem to be contradictory or at least In tension with one another. It has to have some sort of social evolutionary origin. So what gives? What is the function of legal systems?

I am agnostic on the subject so I will argue against the theories presented. (with the secret hope of being convinced. )

In many monarchies with a strong aristocratic class, the point of the law was so the monarch could gain popular support against the aristocrats by limiting their exactions.

I tend to the view that the purpose of law is to well order a society.

As for "altruism"--or any point of moral or ethical prinnciple--I think you will find nothing of the kind in the origins and purpose of law. The protection of the weak might be extolled as an expression of sovereign altruism, but I rather believe that it exists to preserve the weak person's economic contribution. Long before Adam Smith came alone, sovereigns were well aware that they needed a population to from whom to levy armies, raise taxes; and who could be relied upon to grown the food, and build the structures that were required to maintain sovereignty.

A society is, at root, the sum total of the interactions between its members. Law is the framework within those interactions take place.