Introduction. The article attempts to challenge the widely accepted thesis that moral views originated in the period preceding the genesis of law. Materials and methods. The methodological basis of the work is the dialectical method of cognition, which allowed us to trace the relationship between various facts and events. The author used general scientific methods, namely methods of analysis and synthesis of information, as well as the possibilities of methods of description and generalization. The results of the study. At the initial stages of the formation of a stable society, exogamy was especially rigidly determined. The effect of exogamy leads to the formation of a dual tribal organization: two tribal communities that have established an agreement on the exchange of brides, supported by conditions of mutual personal and property inviolability. In the event of its violation, the parties were obliged to reconcile on the terms of equivalence of the retaliatory measure. The institute, which is known as talion, is gradually being formed. Over time, public execution is replaced by symbolic ritual actions. In case of refusal of the talion, the legal composition demanded the rupture of dual relations and the transition of the parties to extra-legal violence. Initially, blood feud was an extremely rare phenomenon, but due to the weakening of ancestral principles in public life, the emergence of patriarchal families closely associated with the emergence of private property, blood feud becomes a private family matter. Talion as a public execution acquires the character of material compensation. At this stage, the state restricts blood feud, legislatively defines its subjects, and then prohibits and assumes its functions: the establishment of punishment for refusal of compensation Conclusions and conclusions. In contrast to the point of view of philosophers, the author put forward a hypothesis about the natural-legal nature of the origin of the most important legal institutions, about their role in the formation of stable social formations that completed the process of forming a person as a social being. The patterns of social development laid down in the process of the genesis of law operate continuously, determining the transformation of the main legal institutions depending on the course of the historical development of society, the tasks facing society.