Systems of inheritance among various peoples

Main article: Historical inheritance systems

Systems of inheritance among various peoples describes the various systems that has come into life to fit the best needs for various people in their unique environment and challenges.

Below are described various historical systems of inheritance around the world:

According to Islamic inheritance jurisprudence, sons inherit twice as much as daughters. The complete laws governing inheritance in Islam are complicated and take into account many kinship relations, but in principle males inherit twice as much as females with some exceptions. However, the Indonesian Minangkabau people (from western Sumatra), despite being Muslim, employ only complete matrilineal succession with property and land passing down from mother to daughter.
Among ancient Israelites, the father bequeaths his inheritance to his sons (daughters inherit in the absence of sons). The eldest son received twice as much as the other sons. The father gives his name to his children; for example: the sons of Israel are called Israelites, because the land belonged to the father, and every one of his twelve sons gave his name to his descendants. Example: the sons of Judah are called Yehudi (which is translated into Latin as Judaeus and into English as Jew.)
In Galicia (Spain) it was typical that all children (both men and women) had a part of the inheritance, but one child (the one who inherited the house and a larger share of the land) inherited one-third of all the inheritance. This child was called the mellorado (literally, "improved upon"). In some villages the mellorado even received two-thirds of all the inheritance. This two-thirds would be all the family's lands, while other children received their part in money. In Galicia's coastal areas, the youngest daughter was often the privileged inheritor, while in Galicia's inner areas the privileged inheritor was often the eldest son.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]^[6] Male primogeniture was also common among peasants in Asturias,^[7] Cantabria,^[8]^[9] Catalonia,^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13]^[14]^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18] Huesca and other minor zones of Aragon,^[19] and parts of the Balearic Islands^[20]^[21] and Valencia.^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26]^[27] Peasants in the rest of the country divided the inheritance between all children^[12]^[28] (the aristocracy employed patrilineal primogeniture -mayorazgo-).
In Sweden, from the thirteenth century until the nineteenth century, sons inherited twice as much as daughters. This rule was introduced by the Regent Birger Jarl. Even after the introduction of these laws, however, the eldest son still usually inherited the land of his parents in exchange for taking care of them in their old age (predominance of patrilineal primogeniture). His siblings received only monetary compensation for giving up their claims on the family land.^[29]^[30]^[31]^[32]^[33]
Among Polish peasants, male primogeniture became the most common practice after the 15th century, but there was high regional variation.^[34] This diversity continued in later times, fostered by the influence of neighbouring countries with different family systems. The Polish pattern of male primogeniture held most strongly in the core, central parts of the country,^[35]^[36] as well as in Little Poland,^[37]^[38] but in peripheral areas different family forms prevailed. In the west Polish areas, male ultimogeniture prevailed.^[39]
In Lowland Laos, inheritance is often bilateral or matrilineal, but in Highland Laos, inheritance is patrilineal and the eldest son is often the main heir; his brothers receive only minor shares^[40]^[41]^[42]
In Pre-colonial Myanmar, inheritance customs among the Bamar or Burmese, who inhabit the Irrawaddy valley, generally followed patrilineal primogeniture: the eldest son, having the special position known as oratha, often received the largest share of the property.^[43]^[44] However, the Kachin people, who inhabit the northern parts of the country, are famous in the Anthropological field for their complicated but highly structured social system that, if strictly followed, would result in patrilineal ultimogeniture in the inheritance of land and patrilineal primogeniture in the inheritance of moveable property.^[45]
Pre-revolutionary France is an excellent example of a culture where inheritance customs can be very diverse. Although patrilineal primogeniture prevailed among the nobility, as in most other European countries, with respect to plebeian custom there were two general patterns: in the southern half of the country, where testamentary freedom was allowed, a system of "stem" families and patrilineal primogeniture developed from the beginning of the sixteenth century onwards,^[46]^[47] while in the northern half, where inheritance processes were fixed by law, a system of "nuclear" families and relatively egalitarian inheritance emerged.^[48] However, within these two regional patterns there was high local variation, and historians and sociologists often disagree about the details of the different family forms. Focusing only on the Pyrenees, for example, in its western parts primogeniture regardless of sex prevailed in the French Basque Country, while in Bearn, male primogeniture predominated.^[49]^[50] In the central Pyrenees, primogeniture regardless of sex predominated in Lavedan and Bareges, while in the Luchonnais, the Baronnies and Bigorre, male primogeniture was the dominant practice.^[51]^[52]^[53] In Aude, male primogeniture also predominated.^[54] In other southern French regions (Dauphiné,^[55] MIDI,^[56]^[57]^[58] Languedoc^[59]^[60]^[60]^[61]^[62] Aquitaine,^[63] Savoy,^[64] the Dauphiné^[65] and Provence)^[66] there was a more homogeneous pattern of male primogeniture, but in western Cantal, a daughter was often preferred as inheritor^[67]^[68] and in some areas, most strongly in Limousin and Auvergne, joint families coexisted (as a minority form) with stem families and male primogeniture.^[69]^[70] In the coastal (but not in the mountainous) areas of Provence, too, property was usually inherited by all sons and joint and nuclear families were numerous. In Brittany, a region in the northwest, local variation in peasant inheritance customs was also high: stem families with male primogeniture prevailed in Leon^[71] and inner Vannetais,^[72] while in Cornouaille no single inheritance custom prevailed, though stem families predominated.^[73] In the rest of the region nuclear families were prevalent, but inheritance was often inegalitarian and favored the eldest son, though in some parts (Tregor and some other areas) the youngest son was favored. Nuclear families with male primogeniture, as in the case of England, were also common in the neighbouring Loire provinces, as well as Normandy,^[74] suggesting a common historical origin for this family form (Normans and the Angevin dynasty, that also ruled England during a long period, had their origins in this part of France)^[71] Variation was extreme in Poitou-Charentes, where all family types (stem, nuclear and joint) could be found. The rest of the north, save for a few regions where male primogeniture prevailed (mainly Alsace,^[75] the Reims region,^[76] Picardy,^[77] Nord-Pas de Calais,^[78] Berry, the Bourbonnais and the area around Verdun) was dominated by nuclear families and relatively egalitarian inheritance practices. In some of the aforementioned regions of Northern France where male primogeniture prevailed (namely Picardy, Nord-Pas de Calais and Alsace), male ultimogeniture prevailed in some places.
In Vietnam, male primogeniture has been predominant since the time of the Lê dynasty as a result of Sinicization and Confucianization. However, in some places, parents live with the youngest son or the youngest daughter and the inheritance is split into equal parts for each of the children.^[79]^[80]
In Norway, male primogeniture traditionally predominated,^[81]^[82]^[83]^[84] probably even since the Viking Age.^[85]^[86] (this was the theory endorsed by the Norwegian historian Andreas Holmsen, among others). However, in the northernmost part of the country (northern Troms and Finnmark), where the Lapp (also called Sami) people lived, male primogeniture prevailed among Norwegian families, while male ultimogeniture prevailed among Sami families^[87]
In Nigeria, an extensive survey across 18 diverse states conducted by the Women’s Rights Project of the Civil Liberties Organization between 1995-1997 revealed that 37 percent of the people practiced patrilineal primogeniture (inheritance by the eldest son), while 51 percent divided the inheritance between all sons or children. Male primogeniture historically prevailed among some peoples like the Ibibio, the Edo or Bini,^[88] the Isoko or the Mumuye, while some others like the Fulani (also called Fulbe) or the Yoruba historically divided the property between all sons or children.
Inheritance customs can also differ greatly by social class. In Pre-industrial England, the nobility and the gentry were characterized by their strict adherence to male primogeniture; among peasants, however, there was no clearly prevalent inheritance pattern.^[89] In Wales, some argue that since the early 16th century male primogeniture prevailed among freeholders and the gentry, who were most of the population in the Welsh upland areas, where stem families predominated,^[90]^[91]^[92]^[93] while male ultimogeniture was predominant among copyholders, who were most of the population in the lowland anglicized areas, where absolute nuclear families predominated.^[94] In Cornwall, free holdings and free and unfree conventionary holdings descended to the eldest son, so male primogeniture was the most common practice among both aristocrats and peasants; however, a few, very poor holdings called "nativi de stipite" descended to the youngest son (male ultimogeniture).^[95]^[96] Not even among the aristocracy inheritance practices have been uniform across the world, though; among Austronesian peoples, for example, Malay and Merina aristocrats practiced male primogeniture, while male ultimogeniture was the custom among Bugi and Makassarese nobles.^[97]
Inheritance customs can also change greatly over time. Among Bohemian peasants, for example, male ultimogeniture prevailed during the 18th century, but during the 19th century, male primogeniture was predominant^[98] In fact, choosing a son as single-heir didn't become predominant among peasants in this region until the 18th century^[99]
Scholars may often disagree about traditional inheritance patterns. In the case of Ireland, for example, some argue that the heir could be any son, as in the famous study of County Clare done by Arensberg and Kimball (1940)^[100] Others, however, argue that the election of an heir wasn't random and that the eldest son was the heir in most cases^[101]^[102] Some have adopted an intermediate view, arguing that primogeniture was the dominant practice, but it wasn't rigidly in force^[103]^[104]^[105] Although neither gender, nor birth order were decisive factors in the election of an inheritor among Spanish Basques, in some areas male primogeniture was usually followed^[106]^[107]
In Belgium, inheritance among peasants was patrilineal: daughters could inherit only in the absence of sons. However, in some regions all sons inherited, while in others (Principality of Liege, Duchy of Limburg, county of Loon), male primogeniture prevailed, and in others (Brabant, Fauquemont) male ultimogeniture prevailed. Male primogeniture also prevailed in Luxembourg, and in the department of Nord (France), customs of ultimogeniture and primogeniture were also common.^[78] In the Netherlands, the Saxon system of stem families and single-heirship revailed among peasants in inner areas. Official surveys demonstrated that the inheritor could be either the eldest son or the last marrying child, often the youngest.^[108]^[109] Peasants in the coastal areas, by contrast, followed no fixed inheritance pattern.^[110]^[111] Dutch elites followed patrilineal primogeniture.^[112]
In Portugal, social elites practiced male primogeniture,^[113]^[114] while peasants divided their land between all children except in the Northwest part of the country, where male primogeniture also prevailed among them.^[115]

Some historical inheritance systems described in detail

The high historical prevalence of male primogeniture among upper classes around the world has been subject to some evolutionary theories, such as those elaborated by Betzig (1993)^[116] and Bergstrom (1994).^[117] Patrilineal primogeniture was generally more common among the wealthy landowners, as in pre-industrial Europe, where it prevailed among aristocrats, but wasn't that widespread among peasants. However, there have also been societies where patrilineal primogeniture was used by common peasants, but ignored by aristocrats and rulers; such was the case in Pre-Colonial Mexico, for example, to the surprise of Spanish chroniclers^[118]^[119] The conical clan was a concept created by Kirchoff to describe the ayllu, the basic form of social organization in Pre-Colonial Inka society. He realized that all Spanish documents spoke about a system of ranked lines of descent; the seniormost male from the seniormost patriline provided the chief, and people were degraded in rank with decreasing seniority of birth and of patriline (see also Isabel Yaya's description of the Inca ayllu in her work "The Two Faces of Inca History: Dualism in the Narratives and Cosmology of Ancient Cuzco").^[120] He called this "a conical clan" because of its similarities with this geometrical form. Kirchoff's work on Inka society, however, remains relatively neglected.^[121] The Aztec calpulli has also been described as a conical clan.^[122] The same system prevailed among many Amazonian tribes, such as those described by Heckenberger,^[123] and the lowland tribes of Central and South America according to Kalervo Oberg.^[124] Although the conical clan was an anthropological concept created during the 1950s to describe these pre-Columbian systems of social organization in America, the first description of such system was Fustel de Coulanges' characterization of the primitive Roman gens in 1864.

In Japan, during the Tokugawa era, in approximately 61 per cent of cases the successor to the family property was the eldest son, while in 4 per cent of cases a younger son succeeded, in 3 percent a cousin was the successor, in 15 percent an adopted son (including sons-in-law) succeeded and in 16 per cent other person succeeded.^[125] Akira Hayami emphasized that male primogeniture wasn't always followed in Tokugawa Japan, but even in his study of the village of Nishijo, eldest sons were the heirs in two thirds of the cases.^[126] Hisashi Watanabe writes in "Hyakusho no Chikara (The Power of Peasants)": "The final feature of Tokugawa Japan is the idea of the perpetual family (iye), which also supported the strong family-land bond. Tokugawa peasants assumed that family property was possessed by not an individual family head, but by the perpetual family. Therefore, ‘although the head of a family has dominion over his family, he cannot divide, sell, or alienate the family estates at his own will. It was believed that the head of a family is responsible for succeeding the family estates from his ancestors and conveying them to his offspring without any change’". Fujiko Isono writes in The Evolution of Modern Family Law in Japan: "At the death of a koshu [family head] the eldest son should step into the status of the koshu to guard the family property and to provide for and preside over its members". Kaibara Ekken (1630–1714), in his book Doji-Kun ("Instructions for Children") supported male primogeniture and told the younger sons to be submissive to their eldest brother. According to Junichi Kanzaka: "In Tokugawa Japan, the head of a perpetual family usually had the same first name. At that time, peasants were not allowed to have a surname, so the succeeding first names of family heads were considered the ‘family names’. [...] it seems that the Meiji government guaranteed landlords and owner-cultivators ‘absolute, well-defined and exclusive property rights to land’. However, in Meiji Japan, property rights did not crystallize. Since peasants still held the idea of the perpetual family and followed the regulations of village communities, the ‘owners’ of land were not able to sell or dispose of their land at their own will. [...] The strength of the perpetual family idea was revealed in the process of the formulation of the Civil Code. [...] in 1890, the Civil Code was published. However, this aroused a fierce controversy. Many lawyers insisted that the Civil Code was essentially incompatible with Japanese tradition. In 1891, legal scholar Yatsuka Hozumi published an article: "If the Civil Code is Enacted, Loyalty and Filial Piety Will Be Destroyed" (Minpo idete, chuko horobu) (Frank 2005, p. 178). [...] The Civil Code stated that individual members of a family (iye) were independent and had several individual rights. Therefore, parents’ property would be divided among their children. Nevertheless, this partible inheritance contradicted the idea of perpetual family property. Then, in the revised Civil Code of 1896 (the Civil Code of 1896 is called the ‘Meiji Civil Code’, while that of 1890 is called the ‘Old Civil Code’), the modern notion of private property compromised with the Japanese traditional principle of perpetual family. Property that had been owned by a perpetual family was made the private property of the family head; then, the status of family head was to be inherited by the eldest son. Thus, the succession of family property was guaranteed in the modern legal system. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that landlords and tenants shared this idea of perpetual family. In 1920, Nobuyoshi Yamazaki, a prominent agriculturalist before WWII, stated that a landlord was ‘a king of that region’ since the landlord’s family had continued without break. On the other hand, tenants also justified their holdings by the fact that tenants had stayed on and cultivated the land for a long time (Kawaguchi 1990, pp. 19, 90)".^[127] During the postwar period, the eldest son was seven times likelier than other sons to co-reside with his parents and inherit their property across the whole country,^[128]^[129]^[130]^[131]^[132]^[133]^[134]^[135] in spite of the fact that the Civil Code of 1947 imposes forced heirship, and official surveys conducted during the 1950s demonstrated a predominant approval and practice of the custom among the Japanese population, even in the southwest part of the country (66 per cent of the people between sixteen and fifty-nine years of age supported and approved male primogeniture across the whole nation. In urban areas 60 per cent and in rural areas 71 per cent of the people between 16 and 59 years of age supported and approved male primogeniture. When only agricultural households were considered, this percentage rose to 77 per cent).^[136]^[137] Although co-residence of seniors aged 65 and above with a child has decreased from 86.8 percent in 1960 to 46.8 percent in 2005, partly due to the increase in the number of childless people,^[138] in most regions, such as Yamanashi prefecture, the first son has almost always inherited all the land even up to this day.^[139] Yoshihiro Sakane praised continuous family holding and male primogeniture in "Japanese Traditional Society and Economic Growth", saying: "Since they clearly know that their children and grand-children will exclusively succeed the intact family estates, including fields, they can systematically make long-range investments, such as the adoption of new techniques and land improvement techniques".

Patrilineal primogeniture also prevailed among the Ryukyuan people, who constitute a separate ethnicity, despite its strong similarities with the Japanese. Among them the custom was even stronger, because it was highly embedded in their kinship system.^[140] Evgeny S. Baksheev writes in "Becoming Kami? Discourse on Postmortem Ritual Deification in the Ryukyus": "Two natural substances, blood (Ok. chii; Jp. chi 血) and semen (Ok. sani, Jp. sane 実 or 種), are believed to play significant roles in designing two different kinds of “parent-child” relationships in the Ryukyus; especially in Okinawa. The relationship through blood (Ok. gweeshichi, non-agnatic kin relationship) is bilaterally symmetrical: the person is related to both the genitor and genitrix in blood. In this sense, it sharply contrasts with the “agnatic” (Ok. shiji 筋) relationship which is thought to be based on semen (sani): agnatic status derives solely from the genitor. Shiji (筋) as the “paternal relation,” or “patrilineage” stands for the genealogical line of succession, being a kind of spiritual power passed on to the individual through the patriline. Thus agnatic status comes with semen (sani) and is transmitted only through the male. The principle of shiji (agnation) is relevant to the indigenous Ryukyuan concept of “citizenship” in the village community. A concrete expression of this principle is a strict male primogeniture in inheritance and succession (Tanaka 1974, pp. 112, 118, 164; Tanaka 1977, pp. 37–38).^[141] Tanaka Masako described the Ryukyuan kinship system extensively in "Categories of Okinawan “Ancestors” and the Kinship System". In this work he explains that among Ryukyuans choosing an inheritor other than the first son was a taboo, as was the coresidence between adult brothers. "The irreplaceability of brothers and strict primogenitural rule of succession are expressed in two taboos，the breach of which will inevitably (so they say) lead to a grave misfortune (e.g., prolonged sickness，recurrent accidents, failure to produce male heir) among the descendants. The first taboo is that of chood.ee kasabai, or “mixing up brothers”. Specifically，the taboo forbids the grown-up married brothers to live on the same household compound, let alone under the same roof; and for dead brother to be entombed in the same tomb, to be enshrined in the same ancestral altar (buchidan), or to be worshipped by the same set of patrilineal descendants. Each brother must have his own independent and irreducible ancestral status. There is no comparable taboo between brother and sister. With postmarital residence rule being virilocal，a daughter leaves her natal household upon her marriage; but if she should divorce，or be widowed, or be temporarily separated from her husband ，she can come home without risking a misfortune. And should she die without attaining a proper ancestorhood at her husband’s household, she can be buried in the tomb of her natal household, enshrined with her patrilineal ancestors，and worshipped by the patrilineal descendants of the natal household. The second taboo is called chatchi ushikumii，which may be translated “pushing aside the first son”. The taboo forbids, again upon ancestral retribution, that the first son be replaced by a younger son. It specifically applies to matters of succession and inheritance，and stipulates that the heir to the household headship should be the first son of the present head, and he alone; that a younger son cannot replace him while the first son is alive; and that the first son cannot be succeeded by his brother, though he can be succeeded by one of the latter’s sons. This taboo then, in effect, equates father with his first son, while irrevocably severing the relationship with all other sons".^[140] In the strictness of male primogeniture, the strict prohibition of coresidence between adult brothers and other aspects, the Ryukyuan traditional family seems an extreme variant of the traditional Japanese family.

In western Germany, there are still laws of primogeniture (Ältestenrecht) and ultimogeniture (Jüngstenrecht) regulating the inheritance of farms. Male primogeniture was historically far more widespread than male ultimogeniture.^[142] A comprehensive map of the traditional distribution of peasant customs of male primogeniture and male ultimogeniture in the western parts of Germany was elaborated by Dultzig.^[143] Unlike legislation during the Nazi period, that made the youngest son heir in areas where no particular custom prevailed, legislation in western Germany since the 1950s has favoured the eldest in these cases.^[144] According to Nazi law (the Reichserbhofgesetz), male primogeniture was the law in Ludwigshorst, Mecklenburg, Brunswick, Hamburg, Bellingen/Altmark, Bezirk Landsberg/Warthe and most of Schleswig-Holstein, while male ultimogeniture was the law in some parts of Westphalia and some parts of Schleswig-Holstein.^[145] Still, the eldest son inherited the farm in most cases during the Third Reich.^[146] Rosalie Horstman Haines, in "The Youngest Sons. Ultimogeniture and Family Structure in Eastern Westphalia, 1680-1980", says that male ultimogeniture was historically relevant in eight German regions: the Black Forest, the district to the north of Lake Constance, Bavaria-Saxony, Brunswick, the Northern Marsh areas, eastern Schleswig-Holstein, Silesia and Westphalia. Impartible inheritance was a deeply rooted custom among German peasants ("The peasant has only one child", says a German proverb). Sociologists and folklorists, such as Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl ("Die Familie" (1855)), praised the German stem family ("Das Ganze Haus", literally "the whole house"), where parents coreside with their inheriting son and his family, as the true essence of the German spirit, and despised industrialization and urbanization as a source of dissolution and destruction of German culture (Nazis would later take up these arguments -see blood and soil-). In many areas of Germany this meant that the brothers of the heir had to either emigrate or remain unmarried in the household, working for him until their death; thus in most regions such as Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, East Prussia, West Prussia, the Province of Saxony, Hesse, Hohenzollern, Bentheim, the county of Hoya, the Principality of Lüneburg, the Principality of Calenberg, Uslar, southern Oldenburg, Posen, upper Wurttemberg, northern Upper Swabia, Upper Bavaria, southern Upper Palatinate, Middle Franconia, Lower Franconia, the Prince-Bishopric of Münster, Western Saxony, Middle Saxony, northwestern Saxony, Upper Lusatia, Sauerland, Lippe, the Westphalian Hellweg, Siegen-Wittgenstein, Minden Land, Waldeck, Kreis Soest, Paderborn (district), Höxter (district), Nordrhein, the County of Glatz, most of Schleswig-Holstein and most of Bremen-Verden, the eldest son inherited the land and their younger brothers had to either emigrate or remain unmarried and in a subordinate position until their death,^[147]^[148]^[149]^[150]^[151]^[152]^[153]^[154]^[155]^[156]^[157]^[158]^[159]^[160]^[161]^[162]^[163]^[164]^[165]^[166]^[167]^[168]^[169]^[170]^[171]^[172]^[173]^[174]^[175]^[176]^[177]^[178]^[179]^[180]^[181]^[182]^[183]^[184]^[185] while the contrary phenomenon (the youngest son inheriting the land and the elder brothers having to either emigrate or remain unmarried in the household and working for him until their death) occurred in some other regions like the Black Forest, East Frisia, the Osnabrück region, Schaumburg-Lippe, Ravensberg Land, Gütersloh, Lower Bavaria, Saxe-Altenburg, Lingen, Diepholz, Cuxhaven, Kreis Tecklenburg, Upper Silesia, Upper Franconia, northern Upper Palatinate, the Ore Mountains, Meissener Land, southern Upper Swabia, northern Oldenburg and most of Lower Silesia.^[157]^[167]^[186]^[187]^[188]^[189]^[190]^[191]^[192]^[193]^[194]^[195]^[196]^[197]^[198]

Even those Germans who migrated to other countries practiced impartible inheritance. Male ultimogeniture prevailed among the Germans in the former Russian Empire,^[199] the Caucasus, Transilvania and Brazil,^[200] while male primogeniture prevailed among those Germans who established themselves in the American Midwest^[201] and Hungary.^[202] Laws of single-heirship with regards to land are also still in force in Austria. In Styria,^[203]^[204] Carinthia,^[205] Vorarlberg,^[206] and Tyrol,^[206] as well as Salzburg and western Upper Austria,^[207] male primogeniture (called Altestenerbrecht) predominates, while male ultimogeniture predominates in most of Lower Austria and central and eastern Upper Austria. Field studies have demonstrated that in those regions of Upper Austria where male ultimogeniture was supposedly the rule, in practice the eldest son inherited the land in a large percentage of cases, too.^[208] This also happened to a lesser extent in Lower Austria.^[209] In Burgenland, as well as parts of Lower Austria, partibility prevails. While male primogeniture is still the usual practice in Japan, in Austria many females are becoming farm successors.^[210] Male primogeniture also prevailed traditionally among Balt and Estonian peasants,^[211]^[212]^[213] and some suggest that this may be due to German influence. Impartible inheritance was also predominant among German Swiss peasants; in most cantons the heir was the eldest son, but in some it was the youngest son^[214] (Italian Swiss and French Swiss peasants generally divided the land into equal parts for each of the sons or children).

As regards Africa, it can be seen that patrilineal societies were most common in East Africa and southern Africa (a term which encompasses not only South Africa, but the whole region south of Angola, Congo and Malawi), while matrilineal societies were usually found in central Africa and west Africa, though even in these regions they were a small minority (most societies in all four regions of Sub-Saharan Africa were patrilineal). Some have theorized that the expansion of cattle could have led to the loss of matrilineal descent in Africa during prehistory.^[215] In matrilineal societies, the (maternal) brothers or the sister's sons of the decedent were his inheritors. In cases where brothers were the inheritors of the decedent, maternal brothers inherited each other in order of seniority, and when all brothers had died, the eldest son of the eldest sister in the previous generation inherited, and so on in each successive generation. However, fraternal succession was predominant also in some patrilineal societies (brothers inheriting each other in order of seniority, the eldest son of the eldest brother in the previous generation becoming the heir when all brothers had died, and so on in each successive generation). The main reason for this type of inheritance system was a very low life expectancy (when a man died, none of his sons was likely to be an adult, while his eldest surviving brother was most likely one). According to the Ethnographic Atlas, there are 90 societies around the world where patrilineal heirs other than sons inherited the property, and in many of these societies the brothers of the decedent inherited his property before his sons. The same circumstance (a low life expectancy) could explain why patrilineal primogeniture (sons have priority over other heirs—such as brothers-, and the eldest son inherits all or most of the property) was historically more common in Sub-Saharan Africa than elsewhere in the world, while patrilineal ultimogeniture was very rare: when a man died, his eldest son was more likely to be an adult than his youngest son, who was likely to be just a child.

Inheritance customs don't tell everything about the rules of domestic life. For example, in Korea and Japan, where patrilineal primogeniture was the general practice,^[216]^[217]^[218]^[219] the brothers of the heir didn't remain celibate in the household, but went away and sometimes lost all contact with the family of origin. "The sibling is the beginning of the stranger", says a Japanese proverb, expressing this low level of sibling solidarity in Japanese culture. In Europe, however, although property was inherited solely by one son in many cases, his brothers were often allowed to remain in the household as long as they didn't marry. And in some African agricultural or horticultural societies the brother, nephew or son who inherited the land to the apparent exclusion of all other inheritors was in practice more of an administrator of the collectively owned property than a real single-heir; thus customs of single-heirship in Africa regarding land entailed varying degrees of real inequality.

There are many exceptions to these phenomena: the Bamileke, for example, often described as "the Ibo of Cameroon", are an agricultural people who traditionally practiced a completely exclusionary form of male primogeniture. "Customary law provides that a man's property is not divisible and is inherited by his favorite son, often, but not necessarily, the eldest. This often causes struggles between brothers, especially half-siblings, and sons other than the inheritor tend to split off and form their own patrilineages. Daughters rarely inherit through the patrilineage."^[220] Joseph Nzalie Ebi writes in "THE STRUCTURE OF SUCCESSION LAW IN CAMEROON: FINDING A BALANCE BETWEEN THE NEEDS AND INTERESTS OF DIFFERENT FAMILY MEMBERS": "The Bamileke, for example recognise male primogeniture and the possibility for the deceased to designate any other of his male children as successor".^[221] Hazel M. Mcferson writes: "Succession and inheritance rules are determined by the principle of patrilineal descent. According to custom, the eldest son is the probable heir, but a father may choose any one of his sons to succeed him. An heir takes his dead father's name and inherits any titles held by the latter, including the right to membership in any societies to which he belonged. And, until the mid-1960s, when the law governing polygamy was changed, the heir also inherited his father's wives--a considerable economic responsibility. The rights in land held by the deceased were conferred upon the heir subject to the approval of the chief, and, in the event of financial inheritance, the heir was not obliged to share this with other family members. The ramifications of this are significant. First, dispossessed family members were not automatically entitled to live off the wealth of the heir. Siblings who did not share in the inheritance were, therefore, strongly encouraged to make it on their own through individual initiative and by assuming responsibility for earning their livelihood. Second, this practice of individual responsibility in contrast to a system of strong family obligations prevented a drain on individual financial resources. Rather than spend all of the inheritance maintaining unproductive family members, the heir could, in the contemporary period, utilize his resources in more financially productive ways such as for savings and investment. [...] Finally, the system of inheritance, along with the large-scale migration resulting from population density and land pressures, is one of the internal incentives that accounts for Bamileke success in the nontraditional world".^[222]

Among the Oromo, too, "According to Oromo custom, the eldest sons in their family (the hangafa) remained at the place of their father's residence by inheriting the qabiyyee land of their fathers while the younger sons had to move into a fresh land".^[223] Abebe Gizachew Abate writes in "Contested Land rights: Oromo peasants struggle for livelihood in Ethiopia": "Traditionally a young son(s) was moving to search new land in the name of his descent, not in his own name. In this regard the eldest son has a privileged position to remain on his father's land. This means priority in birth or priority in land use holds true among the Oromo".^[224] "Among the sons of a family the angafa (eldest) holds a critical position. He inherits the family patrimony. If he has talent, he is also likely to succeed his father in any ritual or political offices or privileges. Within the family he has the authority to redistribute the cattle he inherited among the younger brothers as he sees fit. This gives the first born son considerable power; after the death of the father, the son decides whether his brothers are going to marry, when they will marry, and how many cattle will be made available for their bride wealth payment".^[225] Dejene N. Debsu writes about the Guji Oromo (a subgroup of the Oromo people): "The eldest son, after taking the largest share of the livestock and the lands, distributes the remaining to his younger brothers".^[226] Gemetchu Megerssa writes in "Booran": "The eldest son inherited the family property at the death of his father and succeeded him as head of the household. He was also expected to replace his father as the ritual head of the family and to perform the necessary ceremonies and sacrifices".^[227]^[228] Although other peoples living in present-day Ethiopia also practiced historically male primogeniture, none seem to have given so much importance to the concept of precedence of the eldest son over the other children in the family as the Oromo did according to the description that Gemetchu Megerssa makes of them,^[227] although the Male perhaps approached the Oromo in the importance they placed on male primogeniture.^[229] Emphasis on male primogeniture was characteristic of many Ethiopian societies. Tessema writes the following about the families of the Hadiya people: "Social respect is expressed in various ways:

Addressing elders respectfully,
Giving them priority for food,
Giving them priority in seating order,
Giving them priority in making statements and talks
Giving them first chance in making prayers,
Allowing the first born or elder male-child the choicest land and larger share while sharing inherited properties,
Giving the elders the hunch of a cow or bull whenever one is slaughtered."

Belachew Gebrewold-Tochalo, in an study about the Kambaata, "The Impact of the Socio-Cultural Structures of the Kambata/Ethiopia on their Economic Development", writes the following about the importance of male primogeniture in this society, Sidama society and many others societies in Ethiopia: "Hamer narrates an interesting myth of the Sidamo concerning the power of the first born and the mythological origins of Abo and the Holo and Garbicho clans. [...] The climax of the myth is the narration of how Abo used his power and skill to eliminate his enemies and his brother. In the case of Abo the power and skill are attributed qualities since he is Primogenitor; otherwise, this qualities should be acquired. The first born have in many societies a privileged position. They can inherit the rank of their father. They are rendered a special respect. One asks them for their advice in cases of important decisions. They are considered as leaders of the clan. They are the ones who inaugurate a ceremony, slaughter a sacrificed animal. They are the first ones to taste the newly brewed local beer. Therefore, they are put almost in an equal position with the spirits whom the best part of the drink is sacrificed to. Everybody should obey them, as Haberland describes this fact among the Dizi (Southwest Ethiopia), they are "like God". Among the Dizi, all men shave their hair whereas chieftains never shave it as a sign of supernatural power. [...] Primogeniture, hierarchy and gerontocracy take care of the social order, which is based on social differences".^[230] The peoples among whom male primogeniture prevailed also included the Basketo, the Kaffa, the Gibe, the Gurage^[231] the Shanqella, the Gamo,^[232] the Konso and many others. Donald N. Levine writes in "Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society" that "even among the Amhara, whose ambilineal descent system is so untypical for Greater Ethiopia, there is a bias toward male primogeniture in the allocation of some rights and positions."^[233]

West Colin Thor writes about the Mossi: "Women marry and move into their husband’s father’s household. Only once their offspring is matured to the point of being able to work the land does the ownership of the land transfer from the husband’s father to the son and only if he is the eldest son who is head of his nuclear family. If he is not the eldest son he and his family may move elsewhere."^[234] Male primogeniture also prevailed among the Gbaya, who live predominantly in the Central African Republic, as well as the Guere and the Gban in Ivory Coast.^[235] The Ewe, the Fon and the Tukulor also prracticed patrilineal primogeniture in West Africa according to the Ethnographic Atlas.

Male primogeniture also prevailed among the Igbo; as M.M. Green writes in "Land Tenure in an Ibo Village in southeastern Nigeria": "If a man has several wives, the chief share of his land and other possessions will be inherited by his eldest son by whichever wife. This son is known as the DI OPARA or, in Agbaja, the Di Okwara. If he should die his place as chief heir will be taken by his next brother of the same mother. The next biggest share of the man's land or other property will go by custom to which ever son, by a different wife, is next in age. The third biggest share will go to which ever son, by a yet different wife, is next in age, and so on, If there are more wives, until the eldest son of each wife, in descending order of age, has received his share. A smaller share still will then be given to the younger brother, same mother, of the oldest son of all. Next, with a still smaller share, will come the younger brother, by the same mother, of the son who had second share, and so on till all the sons have had a share."^[236]

Victoria Oluomachukwu Ibewuike writes in "African Women and Religious Change: A study of the Western Igbo of Nigeria":

"The eldest son in the family was heir to the property, but where there was more than one wife, the first sons of the other wives might get bigger or smaller shares, which in some cases might be part of the bride wealth paid for the marriages of their own bloodsisters. It is important to note that the first born son in a family might not necessarily be the son of the head wife or first wife (anase). He might be the son of the third wife of a man but the eldest by birth. The eldest son in a family took the position of his father. His younger brothers sought his advice and asked him for permission to marry. His daughters, if mature, would bring their fiancés to him. In cases where the children of the deceased father were young, they lived with their big half brother, thus the heir, in his own house, and he provided for them. WHen the boys got big enough to marry, he would pay bride wealth for them. If the father had left too many small children behind, the heir might send them to their mother's relatives. [...] The largest share of the property goes to the eldest son, while the youngest son gets the smallest."^[237]

This custom of patrilineal primogeniture even influenced the cultural and religious worldview of the Igbo. Vernantius Emeka Ndukaihe wrote in "Achievement as Value in the Igbo/African Identity: The Ethics", section The 'Ofo' as a sacred symbol of worship: "The most important 'Ofo' is the lineage 'Ofo', believed to have been acquired by the founder of the 'Umunna' (family lineage group), as head. At the death of such a head, the next 'Okpara' (first male child) inherits it. So it goes, handed from generation to generation. There are also personal 'Ofo'. A young man acquires his first 'Ofo' when he is initiated into his first 'Ozo' (a sacred institution reserved for the honourable elders of the community) title. As one advances into the more senior 'Ozo', one acquires the corresponding 'Ofo'. Thus, to possess 'Ofo' is a symbol of great social, religious and moral achievement. The individual 'Ofo' of the 'Ozo' titled man can only be inherited by his eldest son after all the burial rites have been completed. It is regarded a calamity when a dead father has no son to inherit his 'Ofo'".^[238] The Igbo cultural and religious worldview is further explained with great detail in this book.

Chinwe M. A. Nwoye wrote in "Igbo cultural and religious worldview: An insider’s perspective": "among the Igbo, the Obi (Obu) house which the first-born of a dead father takes over after the ceremony of Ikpocha Obi/Abam n’Obi, embodies the social principles of achievement and leadership as well as continuity as the survival ideology of Igbo life. [...] Ofo is the ritual symbol of authority among the Igbo (Ejizu, 1986). An Ofo is obtained from the twig of the ofo tree (Delarium Senegalese). This falls naturally away from the branches of the parent tree. These twigs represent the authority of a man to control his wives, and children. Thus according to Afigbo (1972:21) the ofo was among the Igbo “the supreme ancestral symbol, the staff of traditional authority and influence as well as the symbol of justice, truth and right living. [...] Among the Igbo the eldest son of a man inherits the family Ofo on his death, through the ceremony of Abam n’Obi. The custody of the lineage or village community Ofo lies with the eldest male member of the lineage or village. [...] These observations show that its most important aspect is its symbolism of ancestral authority, especially when it is formerly handed on to Okpara (the first-born son) through the Abam n’Obi Ceremony. According to Anyanwu (1989: 104) “ofo is believed by the Igbo to have been set aside by Chukwu (God) as the symbol of truth”^[239]

Patrilineal primogeniture also prevailed among the black peoples of South Africa. J.Bennett explains the customary law of South African indigenous tribes (male primogeniture) in detail in his book "Customary Law in South Africa": "If the head of a family had only one wife, the rules of succession for all systems of customary law in South Africa are more or less the same. A deceased is succeeded by his oldest son; if that son is already dead, the oldest surviving grandson succeeds. Failing any male issue in the oldest son's family, succession passes to the deceased's second son and his male descendants and so on through all the deceased's sons and their male offspring. [..] In polygynous families, these rules of succession are modified to take account of the fact that the household is divided into separate units or `houses'. According to all the systems of customary law in South Africa, each of a man's marriages establishes a new and independent house. The property in these houses is kept strictly separate, for each estate is inherited by the heir to the house. A further consideration to determine the inheritance of house property is whether the system of polygyny is `simple' or `complex'. According to the simple system, the heir is the first-married wife's oldest son, or, if that person is already dead, his oldest son. Failing any male descendants in the first house, the next in order of succession is the oldest son of the second-married wife and his male descendants, and so forth.When homesteads are divided into two (or even three) different sections, the system of polygyny is termed `complex'. With Xhosa-speaking peoples, for instance, the homestead of a man with two wives is divided into great and right-hand sides. The oldest son of each house becomes heir to that house; if one house has no male issue, the eldest son of the other inherits both. Where the deceased had married a third wife, she would be affiliated (as a qadi or support) to the great house. If one of the houses has no heir, it is inherited by the most senior heir of the section of the homestead to which it was attached. In other words, the heir to a qadi of the great house would be the eldest son of the great house. Conversely, if the great house had no heir, it would be inherited by the heir of its qadi. Zulu homesteads may be divided into three sections: a great house (indlunkulu), a right-hand house or support (iqadi) and a left-hand house (ikhohlwa). As with the Xhosa, junior houses are affiliated to one of the senior houses, and, if there are no sons in the iqadi (or any of its affiliated junior houses), recourse is had to the indlunkulu, and vice versa. Where the ikhohlwa and its junior houses have no heir, this section is inherited by the heir of the indlunkulu."

On the other hand, the Kpelle are a good example of an African people with a high collectivist sense of property ownership which attenuated the severity of customs of single-heirship. David F. Lancy writes in "Playing on the Mother-ground: Cultural Routines for Children's Development": "Land is nominally "owned" by the paramount chief, or in earlier times by the town chief. In reality it is owned by lineage heads and passes from father to eldest son. Many individuals may make claims to parts of this land. [...] All who receive a share of land are expected to pay some token to the lineage head. This is not a fixed rent but depends on the user's financial circumstances and on his or her respect for the lineage head. [...] When an individual uses the land of the lineage head, he or she is expected to make frequent gifts of produce and to perform chores on the lineage head's farm". Among the Krobos, property was shared when the deceased was a monogamist, but when he was a polygamist it was used exclusively by the eldest sons of all the wives: "if the deceased was a monogamist, his eldest son inherits the property. In doing so, he accepts responsibility for his younger brothers, who will benefit from use of the land or other property. If the deceased was in a polygynous union, the property is shared equally among the eldest sons of all the wives".^[240]

A similar system prevails in Mozambique: "Control over the family land, as well as over the goods and obligations of the dead man, is under the custody and responsibility of his oldest son. But he in no way acquires property rights, and may not sell or grant the land, even temporarily, without consulting his uncles and male cousins. [...] When a man dies, his land is not transferred to his widow or to the community but remains the responsibility of the oldest son. [...] Later, when the oldest son dies, the responsibility for administering the land and the trees is transferred to his oldest son, that is, to the oldest grandson of the old man who has died. Under these circumstances, the oldest grandson cannot take decisions about the land without the prior consent of his paternal uncles. [...] The son charged with managing the property has two main responsibilities: first, market the fruit (coconuts, for example) every year, followed by the equitable division of the income among all the brothers; secondly, it is his task to distribute plots of “the old man’s” land to his younger brothers, and to the sons and nephews at the point of their marriages. The oldest son is not allowed to plant fruit trees on his late father’s land. The benefits from his father’s land revert in his favour while he is temporarily cultivating it. However, the revenue from the annual sale of coconuts, bananas and mangos, when the trees were planted by his father, should be shared by everyone. The division among the legitimate heirs is on an equal basis, but only the sons are regarded as genuine heirs. [...] The rights of the oldest son over the land are numerous and unlimited. If a younger brother needs a mango tree from his father’s land in order to build a canoe, he is entirely dependent on the permission of his elder brother. If the latter is not in agreement, there is no appeal to any higher instance. But the oldest son may decide to cut down all the trees without having to consult or request permission from either his brothers or his uncle".

Mozambican peoples, The Kpelle and the Krobos practice male primogeniture, but in fact the African societies with a high collectivist sense of property were typically those where inheritance was lateral (brothers and/or nephews inherited before sons), not lineal (sons inherited). All societies where the brothers or the nephews of the decedent inherited his property before his own sons were societies with a high collectivist sense of property ownership, as the inheritance would pass from brother to brother in order of seniority and then to the eldest son of the eldest brother in the previous generation, in patrilineal societies, or to the eldest son of the eldest sister in matrilineal societies. Societies with an strong lineal orientation (sons inherited) are especially common in Southern and East Africa, while societies with a lateral orientation (brothers and/or nephews inherited before sons) were common in West and Central Africa.

When the Spanish and the Portuguese conquered Mexico, Central America and South America, they imposed laws of equal inheritance in the territories conquered. In the centre and south of the Iberian peninsula, peasants divided the land between to all children, both male and female; only wealthy landowners (such as aristocrats) could establish a mayorazgo and give all or most of the land to the eldest son (patrilineal primogeniture). In the north of the Iberian peninsula, by contrast, peasants gave most or all of the land to only one child, generally the eldest son. In spite of the introduction of these laws, most systems of land inheritance in Latin America, especially those of indigenous communities, are characterized by a marked patrilineal bias: daughters inherit little or no land. There may also be certain biases favouring the eldest or the youngest son (e.g. the eldest son may get a larger share of the land, or the youngest son may get the house in addition to his own share as a reward for caring for the parents in their old age, etc.), although all sons traditionally received more or less equal shares of land.^[241]^[242] This practice of patrilineal egalitarian inheritance has resulted in acute problems of land fragmentation in Latin America.^[243] Problems of land fragmentation are also severe in contemporary China, where the disappearance of the ancient joint-family system under communism has brought a system whereby each son receives his share of the land and moveables as he marries, too.^[244]

In Europe, Slavic peoples were characterized by their attachment to the principle of equal division of the land between sons. Emil de Laveleye describes the Russian family around 1900 as follows: "The patriarchal family is the basis of the commune; and the members of the mir are generally considered as descended from a common ancestor. Family ties have maintained a force among the Russians, as also among the Slavs of the Danube and the Balkan, which they have lost elsewhere. The family is a sort of perpetual corporation. It is governed by a chief called "the ancient," with almost absolute authority. All property is in common. There is usually neither succession nor partition. The house, the garden, the agricultural implements, the stock, the produce—moveables of every description—remain the collective property of all the members of the family. No one thinks of claiming a separate share. On the death of the father of a family, his authority and administration devolve on the eldest member of the house: in some districts, on the eldest son; in others, on the eldest brother of the deceased, provided he live under the same roof. In some parts, too, the members of the family themselves elect the new chief. If all the survivors are under age, a relation establishes himself with them and becomes a co-proprietor. The head of the family is called Khozain, which signifies "the administrator," or Bolshak, that is, the "great one." When, on a death, a division of property takes place, which is less rare than in former times, it is not made according to the degrees of relationship, but each adult male living in the house takes an equal share. An orphan cannot succeed for his father by representation; and those who have left the paternal roof have no right of succession. The females remain in the charge of one branch or other of the family, and receive a portion on their marriage. In the north, the house passes to the eldest son. In the south, the youngest inherits it, because, ordinarily, the eldest has set up a separate establishment during the lifetime of his father. It is not blood, or descent, which gives the title to succeed, but a much more effective title, co-operation in the labour which has produced the property whose division is in question. The adult uncle, nephew, and cousin, have laboured together; they shall take an equal portion. The young girl and the child have contributed nothing to production: their wants will be provided for, but they have no right to a share in the inheritance. In the Russian family as in the Russian state, the idea of authority and power is confused with that of age and paternity. The word starosta signifies "the old;" the word starshina is in the comparative, "older." The emperor is the "father,"—the "little father." This is the real principle of the patriarchal system."^[245]

Among many peoples who divide their land and movable property equally among all sons or children, the youngest son, daughter or child inherits the house or parental dwelling after caring for his or her parents until their death, since each of the sons or children will receive his or her share of land and movable property as he or she marries. The gavelkind practice of Kent is the most known example of this, but such custom is characteristic of many other peoples who also practice equal or relatively equal inheritance of land and movable property, such as for example many ethnic minorities in Southwest China. Ultimogeniture with regards to house inheritance and equal inheritance of land and movable property by all sons is also characteristic of many indigenous Andean and Mesoamerican rural communities.^[246] The fact that the youngest only receives the house and not any productive means, such as land or livestock, as a reward for caring for the parents sometimes diminishes his or her marriage opportunities and reproductive chances, but some authors argue that at least it increases the bond between him/her and his/her parents. There are also cases, however, as among some Naga tribes in India, the Luo of Kenya^[247] and many Latin American communities,^[248]^[249]^[250]^[251]^[252]^[253]^[254]^[255]^[256]^[257] where the youngest is even disadvantaged with regards to land and/or livestock inheritance in spite of his/her responsibility for caring for the parents, though in the case of the Luo of Kenya it is logical, as the Luo of Kenya attach great importante to seniority among sons. Thus among them the eldest son receives the largest share and each succeeding son receives a smaller share than any of his seniors. Ocholla Ayayo writes in "Traditional Ideology and Ethics among the southern Luo":

"When the time of the inheritance comes the ideology of seniority is respected: the elder son receives the largest share, followed in the order of seniority. If it is the land to be divided, for instance, the land of the old grandfather's homestead, the senior son gets the middle piece, the second the land to the right hand side of the homestead, and the third son takes the land on the left hand side. After the father's death the senior son takes over the responsibilities of leadership. These groups when considered in terms of genealogy, are people of the same grandfather, and are known in Dholuo as Jokaware. They share sacrifices under the leadership of the senior brother. If the brother is dead the next brother in seniority takes the leadership of senior brother. The responsibility and prestige position of leadership is that it puts one into the primary position in harvesting, cultivation, as well as in eating specified parts of the animal killed, usually the best parts. It is the senior brother, who is leading in the group, who can first own the fishing boat. Since it is he who will be communicating with the ancestors of their father or grandfather, it is he who will conduct or lead the sacrifices of religiousity of the boat, as we have noted earlier. [...] The system of the allocation of land by the father while he is still alive is important since it will coincide with the system of inheritance of land. The principle of the division of the land in monogamous families is rather simple and straightforward. [...] The senior son takes the centre portion of all the land of the homestead up to and beyond the gate or to the buffer zone; the second son then has the remainder of the land to divide with the other brothers. If the land is divided among the elder sons after they are married, and take to live in their lands, it often happens that a youngest son remains in the village of the father to care for him in his old age. His inheritance is the last property, called Mondo and the remaining gardens of his mother. [...] In the case of a polygamous village, the land is divided along the same lines, except that within the village, the sons claim the area contiguous to the houses of their mother. Each wife and her children are regarded as if the group constituted was the son of a single woman.By that I mean the children of the senior wife, Mikayi, are given that portion of the total area which could have been given to the senior son in a monogamous family. The sons of Nyachira, the second wife, and the sons of Reru, the third wife, lay claim to those portions which would have fallen to the second and third sons of Mikayi in a monogamous village"^[258]

The Luo kinship, family and inheritance system is explained in detail in Paul Hebinck and Nelson Mango's excellent work, "Land and embedded rights: An analysis of land conflicts in Luoland, western Kenya."^[259] Parker MacDonald Shipton also writes extensively about kinship, family and inheritance among the Luo in his book "Mortgaging the Ancestors: Ideologies of Attachment in Africa". In Kenya, the eldest son is often the favored heir (among the Nandi, for example, "the principal heir is the senior son, who is the executor").^[260]

The Bogos or Bilen give most of the inheritance to the eldest son, but the empty house to the youngest son:

"Among the Bogos the rule of primogeniture prevails. The firstborn is the head of the family; and the chieftainship also descends through the firstborn from generation to generation. Indeed, the firstborn of a great family is regarded as something holy and inviolable; he is a king without the kingly power. On the death of a man his property is divided, and the firstborn gets the best share, including the highly valued white cows and all the furniture and other domestic goods in the house. But the empty house itself belongs of right to the youngest son".^[261]

George T. Bettany writes in "The Dark Peoples of the Land of Sunshine: A Popular Account of the Peoples ...": "The Bogos [...] are divided into two extremely separate castes -the elders, or patrons, and the clients; the latter possibly the descendants of captured or subject enemies. The client is a serf, but cannot be sold; he goes with the land, and has a right to the protection of his patron. The youngest son of the aristocrat inherits the ancestral abode, while the eldest son has the double-edged sword of his father, his lands, his serfs, and his white cows".^[262]

Among the Tigrinya, with regards to land inheritance, "every male born is entitled to it", but "eldest son has the right to ask for his siblings’ share of the inheritance", according to Tsehainesh Tekle.^[263]

Ultimogeniture with regards to house inheritance and equal inheritance of land and other property is also characteristic of Thailand, but in this case the child who inherits the house (generally the youngest daughter) sees his or her share of other property proportionally reduced^[264] An study about Filipino, Taiwanese and Thai peoples, among whom egalitarian inheritance practices prevail, confirms this tendency for the youngest son, daughter or child to co-reside with parents under these inheritance systems, although this tendency was weak among the Taiwanese and strongest among the Thai.^[265] Intergenerational wealth transfers in China tend to favor the eldest son, though,^[266]^[267]^[268]^[269] and studies using empirical evidence found that coresident children in China tend to be firstborn sons.^[270] Of the three aforementioned peoples, Filipinos in particular are characterized by the egalitarianism of their inheritance practices: all children usually receive the same from their parents, regardless of their gender and birth order. Although sons, particularly eldest sons, receive greater portions of land, those children who receive less land are compensated with more education.^[271]

Michael Vickery theorizes that ultimogeniture may have been more widespread in ancient times in the Indochina peninsula, and points to some evidence of it with regards to the succession to the Cambodian throne.^[272] However, his position is mostly speculative, and he admits that as a basis for the inheritance of political power, male primogeniture has been more common than male ultimogeniture during more recent centuries (in Thailand, for example, lords generally chose their eldest sons to succeed them).^[273] The best example of male primogeniture in the Indochina peninsula is the stem family of Vietnam. According to Khuat Thu Hong, a Vietnamese scholar who has offered the most detailed explanation of the Vietnamese traditional family,^[79] the eldest son customarily resided with his parents after his marriage and after their death received the house, the hong hoa or land for ancestor worship and a bigger portion of the rest of the land. Although there are customary variations of this system, such as living the youngest son or even the youngest daughter instead of the eldest son and splitting the land and moveables in equal parts for each of the children, these deviations from the pattern of male primogeniture are more common in the south, where indigenous Indochinese influence has been greater, than in the North, the craddle of the Vietnamese civilization and where Chinese influence has been greater (however, in the South the most common practice was also to live with the eldest son and make him the main heir, as shown by Dong Thai Dong's recent (1991) fieldwork, "Modification of the traditional family in the South of Vietnam"). Male primogeniture was codified into law during the early years of the Lê dynasty (Lê Code). He says: "A quite popular stem family here is that parents usually live with the family of their son, in most cases the eldest son. The nonegalitarian inheritance process commonly occurs, so that the eldest son or the other child who undertakes the responsibility of caring for his old parents or worshipping ancestors, inherits a larger portion of the property in compariison with his siblings. [...] In traditional Vietnamese society, in families with sons and daughters, sons always have the inheritance right to obtain the majority of the family property. The eldest son receives the biggest share because he must care for his parents in their old age and gets responsibilities for worshipping the ancestors. In general, the eldest son usually inherited his parents' house, which had been passed down from his ancestors through the same process. From the 15th century on, land for ancestor worship usually was equal to 1/20 of the total land area owned by the family as written in article 1, section 388 of the Hong Duc law (Le Code). In addition, the eldest son could receive a big part of cultivated land and production materials, money and other household facilities. The other sons received each an equal part of the remaining land. However, the eldest son had to be responsible for his brothers and younger sisters; for example, elder brothers provided food for their siblings and financed their weddings". According to surveys carried out by the Institute of Sociology in 1991, "26.7 percent of the parents liked to live with the eldest son, 9.1 percent with the youngest son; 12.6 percent with one married son; 4.1 percent with one child, whoever son or daughter; only 2 percent with a married daughter, and only 1.1 percent with a youngest daughter. More specifically, nearly half of the old people preferred to live and eat together with one child (47.4 percent), less than one fifth preferred to live with the family of one child, but have a separate kitchen (18.1 percent)" (Institute of Sociology 1991). Tran Quynh Ngoc Bui, another Vietnamese scholar, explores the consequences of male primogeniture in Vietnamese popular culture.^[274] He is of the opinion that egalitarian inheritance practices most probably predominated before the establishment of the Lê Dynasty. He is somewhat mistaken, however, in the examples of customs of ultimogeniture around the world he cites, since he cites mostly customs of partible inheritance where the youngest son received the hearth or parental dwelling-house in addition to his share of land and moveables as a natural result of the family life-cycle (as sons need land and moveables to form their own families, they usually receive their shares when they marry and not when their parents die; thus the last son is the only one who receives his share when his parents die, and since his brothers would have moved out already, he also receives his parents' house). Such pattern is not exactly one of ultimogeniture in sociological or anthropological terms. However, customs of ultimogeniture in the strict sense of the word (the youngest son, daughter or child inheriting all or most of the land and moveables) are very rare. Edmund Leach observes that Kachin folktales, by contrast, focus on the conflict that often ensues between brothers as a result of the prevailing custom of male ultimogeniture.^[275] Thai folktales, however, do not revolve around conflicts between brothers, since the Thai inheritance system does not favor the youngest or eldest son, but around marital conflicts arising from the rule of matrilocality that is commonly observed in the Thai countryside.^[276]

There is little to inherit in hunter-gatherer societies. Although even unequal inheritance customs have been described in these societies, such "inheritance" (a tent, a boat, hunting tools) is of little value. Some hunter-gatherer societies, however, in particular Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast (e.g. the Nootka), and also some Amazonian Indians, as well as some South Cone Indians (e.g. the Mapuches) developed slightly more complex and stratified social systems. In these societies elder sons and their lines of descent were ranked above younger sons and their lines of descent. Jomon-era Japan is also considered a more stratified and complex hunter-gatherer society than most others societies of its kind.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Friday, April 08, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.