Were Courts as Bad in Christ's Time?

Mat 5:25 Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are in the street with him; lest at any time your adversary delivers you to the judge, and the judge delivers you to the officer, and you are cast into prison.
Mat 5:26 Truly I say to you, you shall be unable to come out of there until you have paid your last dime.

What makes this whole series starting with verse 21 so interesting is that Christ has been talking about the judgment of men, not the judgment of God. He starts talking about how murder leads to court. Then he predicts how even name-calling will one day (soon) lead to court action. Now, he discusses how disagreements lead to court action, which can lead to jail, which can lead to poverty, or more precisely, bankruptcy.

Here Christ is telling us that earthly justice is a dangerous thing. Even if we are innocent, it can be terribly costly. Was this as true in his day as in ours? Roman law was quite well developed in terms of contract law, property rights, family law regarding inheritence, and, of course, criminal law. There were, however, no laws against name-calling, which was the proximate topic to this discussion of problems between people.

What Christs wants us to know is that it is better for us, both spiritually and physically, to make our own peace in the world without relying on legal systems. As anyone who has had anything to do with the legal system can tell you, this advice is timeless. However, it is more than that. It is a condemnation of the whole idea that the law or the state can solve our problems for us. Christ is telling us that the world is made of individuals, not states, and that our individual relationships are what determine the course of our lives.

Why do we attach so much importance to politics when our personal relationships with one another are what really make up our lives? Yes, the government can take our money and perhaps give us some now and then, but that is a fact of life, like the weather. This doesn't determine our happiness. Our happiness comes from how we treat others and the relationships that arise from our treatment of others.