Inheritance
Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual.
Officially bequeathing private property and/or debts can be performed by a testator via will, as attested by a notary or by other lawful means.
In modern law, the terms inheritance and heir refer exclusively to succession to property by descent from a deceased dying intestate.
Some cultures also employ matrilineal succession, where property can only pass along the female line, most commonly going to the sister's sons of the decedent; but also, in some societies, from the mother to her daughters.
Some ancient societies and most modern states employ egalitarian inheritance, without discrimination based on gender and/or birth order.
The laws of Jewish inheritance are discussed in the Talmud,[6] in the Mishneh Torah[7] and by Saadiah ben Joseph[8] among other sources.
With the accession of Emperor Constantine in 306, Christians both began to distance themselves from Judaism and to have influence on the law and practices of secular institutions.
As Stephanie Coontz documents in Marriage, a History (Penguin, 2006), not only succession but the whole constellation of rights and practices that included marriage, adoption, legitimacy, consanguinity, and inheritance changed in Western Europe from a Greco-Roman model to a Judeo-Christian pattern, based on Biblical and traditional Judeo-Christian principles.
The Quran introduced a number of different rights and restrictions on matters of inheritance, including general improvements to the treatment of women and family life compared to the pre-Islamic societies that existed in the Arabian Peninsula at the time.
[13] Furthermore, the Quran introduced additional heirs that were not entitled to inheritance in pre-Islamic times, mentioning nine relatives specifically of which six were female and three were male.
[20] Arguments for eliminating forced heirship include the right to property and the merit of individual allocation of capital over government wealth confiscation and redistribution, but this does not resolve what some[who?]
In terms of inheritance inequality, some economists and sociologists focus on the inter generational transmission of income or wealth which is said to have a direct impact on one's mobility (or immobility) and class position in society.
The total cumulative effect of inheritance on stratification outcomes takes three forms, according to scholars who have examined the subject.
[30] The third form of inheritance is the transfers of bulk estates at the time of death of the testators, thus resulting in significant economic advantage accruing to children during their adult years.
Child-rearing practices among those who inherit wealth may center around favoring some groups at the expense of others at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
In fact, children of well-off parents generally receive better schooling and benefit from material, cultural, and genetic inheritances.
[35] As a result, mixed races might be excluded in inheritance privilege and are more likely to rent homes or live in poorer neighborhoods, as well as achieve lower educational attainment compared with whites in America.
[36] A New York Times article reveals that the U.S. is the world's wealthiest nation, but "ranks twenty-ninth in life expectancy, right behind Jordan and Bosnia" and "has the second highest mortality rate of the comparable OECD countries".
These inequalities stem from a combination of legal, cultural, and religious practices that often prioritize male heirs over female ones, resulting in significant socio-economic consequences for women.
Much has been written about the rise and influence of dynastic wealth including the bestselling book Capital in the Twenty-First Century by the French economist Thomas Piketty.
The first communist government installed after the Russian Revolution resolved to abolish the right of inheritance regardless of being the result of someone's work or exploitation,[43] with some exceptions.
