Heirloom
Inherited daughter means the daughter of a deceased person (called “ testator ”) who, in contrast to her siblings - or if she is the only (remaining) child of the person - can or should take over the inheritance alone ; earlier these could also be other close female relatives of the deceased. In German inheritance law , the term "heir daughter" has no meaning.
Feudal beings
In the medieval feudal system, heir daughter was a well-known term and came into play when male heirs were missing. In contrast to the usual succession from father to sons ( patrilineal ), there were special rules for the exact procedure in the case of a single remaining descendant . For example, fiefdoms could only be bequeathed to women if the landowner ( feudal lord ) and the testator ( feudal man ) made an agreement; the landlord was involved in the choice of the husband of the heir; this gave rise to so-called "Weiberlehen" (see Kunkellehen ).
European nobility
In the European cultural area , women in aristocratic houses were only considered the principal heirs when the male sex had died out; this was (and is) regulated in aristocratic families with so-called house rules. In the case of ruling princely families and other high nobility , there was also the difficulty of determining the succession to the throne, which is often regulated by law. A world-famous hereditary princess was Caroline von Monaco as the intended successor to the Grimaldis in the Principality of Monaco until 2014 .
Ethnic groups and indigenous peoples
With more than 150 ethnic groups and indigenous peoples worldwide who regulate their descent and succession through the line of their mothers ( matrilinear ), the heiress is usually the youngest daughter of a woman, especially if the testator ran her own extended family. This form of succession is referred to as the ultimogenitur “lastborn right” (in contrast to the primogenitur: “inheritance right of the firstborn ”), in the case of women as an ultimagenitur (“lastborn”). An example of this regulation of ownership can be found among the Khasi in northeast India in the small state of Meghalaya , where this people with around 1.5 million members makes up about half of the total population and matrilineal succession is anchored in the state constitution .
See also
- Inheritance law (inheritance law in Mecklenburg)
- Epikleros (heir daughter in ancient Greek law: inheritance goes to her spouse)
- Minorat (youngest inheritance: the youngest, or if there is no male heir: the youngest)
- Anerbenrecht (strategic inheritance only an heir)
Web links
Individual evidence
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J. Patrick Gray: Ethnographic Atlas Codebook. (PDF file: 2.4 MB, without page numbers) In: World Cultures. Volume 10, No. 1, 1998, pp. 86–136, here p. 104: Table 43 Descent: Major Type (one of the few evaluations of all ethnic groups recorded at that time in 1267), quote: "584 Patrilineal [...] 160 Matrilineal [... ] 52 Duolateral […] 49 Ambilineal […] 11 Quasi-lineages […] 349 bilateral […] 45 Mixed […] 17 Missing data “.
Percentages of the 1267 ethnic groups (1998): 46.1% patrilinear (from father) - 12.6% matrilinear (from mother) - 4.1% duolateral (bilinear: different from father and mother) - 3.9% ambilinear ( optional) - 0.9% parallel (quasi-lines) - 27.6% bilateral, cognatic (Western model: origin from both parents) - 3.6% mixed - 1.6% missing data.
The Ethnographic Atlas by George P. Murdock now contains data sets on 1,300 ethnic groups (as of 2015 in InterSciWiki ), of which often only samples were evaluated, for example in the HRAF project , a large-scale database for holistic cultural comparisons of 400 recorded peoples. - ↑ Chie Nakanee: Garo and Khasi - A Comparative Study in Matrilineal Systems. Gruyter, Paris / The Hague 1967, ISBN 978-3-11-196796-7 (English; critical review ).