Historians are divided over whether to think such inconsistencies were due to lawyers stretching the interpretation of Meirei-ritsu to adapt it to the reality or to simply think that the decline of the study of codes and advance in hereditary learning led to lowering academic standards and loosening of the ritsuryo law itself, resulting in a situation where the original meaning of the Article was left behind and the inconsistencies were overlooked.
これを明法家によって名例律の拡大解釈が行われて現実に適合させたと捉えるか、単に明法道の衰退と家学化による学術水準の低下や律令法自体の弛緩によって条文本来の意味が忘れられて矛盾が見過ごされてしまったのか、歴史学者の間でも見解が分かれている。