Inheritance

in law, property passing to an heir on the death of an ancestor. Also applied to property then received. An inheritance differs from a bequest. The latter is received by reason of a direction to that effect in the will of the deceased. The common law of inheritance is that all children of a parent shall inherit equally. Children born out of wedlock have no legal claims on the property of a deceased father. In case of death without children laws vary both at home and abroad. The property may revert to the father and mother or to the brothers and sisters. In case property would have been inherited by one who is dead it goes to his descendants or other heirs. An heir presumptive is, for instance, a younger brother who will inherit unless a direct heir, as a son or daughter, be born. On the birth of a direct heir the heir presumptive ceases to be an heir. In England to some extent, and in other countries among the landed classes, a law of primogeniture prevails. The first born son inherits the family estate. The purpose is to keep the estate undivided. A younger brother may be dependent, and, as a matter of fact, be driven into various occupations, as the law, medicine, church, or army, while the elder son is a man of wealth and rank. In case the holder of this estate die without a son the estate goes to the next younger brother if any. In the United States one may adopt a child and make it a legal heir, but in England, according to the old English adage and in accordance with the law of primogeniture, "God only can make an heir."

The English principle of primogeniture appeared, more or less fully, in all the American colonies of England. In Virginia and most of the South it prevailed in full. In New England the oldest son inherited a double share of the estate. These conditions continued until the Revolution. In Virginia Thomas Jefferson, after a strenuous contest of many months, succeeded in persuading the Virginia Assembly of 1777 to abolish primogeniture and entail. In the same year the democratic constitution of Georgia provided for the equal division of property among the heirs of an intestate. This provision was copied in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 for the national territory north of the Ohio, and it has become a general American principle.

See Gavel-Kind; Adoption; Salic Law