习惯法作为在人们长期生活经验中产生的地方性规范，在民间纠纷中起到重要的作用。尤其是在清代，这个经济迅速发展的时期，随着许多新的经济关系的产生，习惯法的地位和作用进一步凸显。清代的官方制定法受到重刑轻民和重农抑商思想的影响，对于民间纠纷的相关规定较为简单，而人们受到“息讼”等思想的影响，出现纠纷时也往往不会将官府诉讼作为第一选择。习惯法作为符合当地风俗习惯和人们内心认同的共识的规范，得以参与到民间纠纷调解的过程中。习惯法通过对当事人权利义务的明确规定以及避免纠纷的条款为纠纷解决提供了依据，促进公平，减少了当事人的后顾之忧，同时也为调解提供了调解人,提高了纠纷调解的效率。除此之外，习惯法这一具有约束力的规范也为纠纷调解后调解结果的实施提供了舆论压力等强制力，通过当事人内心认同的方式促进了纠纷的彻底解决，减少二次纠纷的可能，以一种较为和缓的途径保全了当事人的“面子”。但是习惯法也存在一定的局限性，习惯法与官方制定法的冲突使得人们无所适从，习惯法继承的传统的陋习也不利于法制的发展，并且由于其不成文和缺乏系统性的特点，习惯法也无法适应日益复杂的经济发展情况。

As a local norm arising from people's long life experience, customary law plays an important role in folk economic disputes. Especially in the Qing Dynasty, during the period of rapid economic development, with the emergence of many new economic relations, the status and role of customary law was further highlighted. The official laws of the Qing Dynasty were influenced by the thought of emphasizing criminal law over civil law and emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, and the relevant provisions of civil economic disputes were relatively simple. Influenced by the thought of "appeasement to litigation", people often did not take the official litigation as the first choice when there were disputes. As a standard conforming to local customs and people's inner consensus, the customary law can participate in the process of the mediation of civil economic disputes. Customary law provides the basis for dispute settlement and promotes fairness through the clear stipulation of rights and obligations of the parties and the clause to avoid disputes. It reduces the worries of the parties and also provides mediators to improve the efficiency of dispute mediation. In addition, customary law, a binding norm, also provides the enforcement force such as public opinion pressure for the implementation of the mediation results after dispute mediation, and promotes the thorough settlement of disputes through the inner recognition of the parties, reduces the possibility of secondary disputes, and saves the "face" of the parties in a relatively gentle way. And the common law also has certain limitation. The conflict between the customary law and the official law makes people confused, and the traditional bad habits inherited by the customary law are also not conducive to the development of the legal system, and because of its unwritten and lack of systematic characteristics, the customary law can not be applied to the increasingly complicated economic development situation.