ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the historical study of the legal rules of inheritance. It explores one aspect of the relation of dependency of children or youths which involves the transmissions of values. The chapter discusses historically, the status of minors and wives in relation to the ownership of property. It represents for all but a minority of aristocratic families, the most significant piece of the family line as the importance of a lineage stretching beyond three generations is almost extinct. The chapter discusses the rules of intestate succession because the rules, invoked independently of familial or individual choice, represent a class view, expressed through legal forms, of what the appropriate familial order was and should be. It discusses the exclusions which have been maintained and reproduced in and through systems of inheritance. It is worth pointing out that inheritance is most importantly concerned with familial transmission.
