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.
Patrilineal ultimogeniture, where the youngest son inherits, was customary among a number of cultures including: Fur, Fali, Sami (also called Lapp), Bashkir, Chuvash, Gagauz, Vep, Tatar, Achang, Ayi, Atayal, Kachi, Biate, Chinantec, Hmar, Mro, Kom, Purum and Lushei or Lushai (sometimes mistakenly taken for the whole Mizo people, especially in the past).
These included: The Ngoni, the Gogo, the Mangbetu, the Rendille, the Sapo, the Boran, the Gabra, the Plains Pokot, the Hema, the Beti-Pahuin, the Buduma, the Dogon, the Duala, the Djafun and the Kassena.
However, rule of patrilineal primogeniture did develop among some Canadian indigenous peoples who practiced agriculture, such as the Montagnais, the Kutchin, the Pikangikum, the Ojibwa, the Klallam and the Atsugewi.
Equality between all sons and a subordinate position of women, with the exclusion of daughters from inheriting, are prominent aspects of Hungarian,[29] Albanian,[30] Romanian,[31] Armenian, and most Slavic[32][33][34] or Latin American cultures.
Romans valued sons more than daughters, and Thais and Shan showed the reverse pattern, though all practiced equal land inheritance between all children.
On their death he inherited the parental tent, which was connected with the religious cult in Mongol traditions, though all sons received more or less equal shares of livestock as they married.
[55][57][58] However, many peoples who have partially or completely embraced Islam, have also established inequality between sons, such as the Oromo of east Africa, who had patrilineal primogeniture in inheritance, in spite of the fact that some of them were Muslim.
[64] The practice of widow inheritance by younger brothers has been observed in many parts of Africa and the Asian steppe, as well as small zones of South Asia.
[66] Research on pre-industrial Russian Karelia however, suggests that younger brothers frequently remained unmarried,[67] and the joint-family household characterized by the equal inheritance of land and moveable property by all sons and patriarchal power relations wasn't universal in Russia.
The patrilineal joint-family systems and more or less equal inheritance for all son in India and China meant that there was no difference in marriage and reproduction due to birth order.
[77] Among the Hausa of West Africa, who practice primogeniture, the mother and oldest son engage in mutual avoidance behavior to mark the woman's positive change in status upon producing an heir.
Among East Asian peoples, on the other hand, co-residence between parents and their eldest son was thought of as normal and desirable in systems of impartible inheritance, and in some countries such as Japan, Vietnam and South Korea it is widely practiced even nowadays.
[85] In Japan, Korea and Vietnam, as well as in some of those European regions where male primogeniture was practiced, parents didn't transfer their property to the inheriting son at the point of his marriage as among Germans.
In South Africa, for example, the influence of more modern, western social ideas has caused strong opposition, both civil and official, to the customary law of patrilineal primogeniture traditionally prevalent among black peoples, and inheritance customs are gradually changing.
[97][98][99] In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the predominant custom of male primogeniture is also beginning to be considered unfair by some women and younger sons.
[100] The custom of patrilineal primogeniture predominant in South Sudan,[101] Uganda,[102] Tanzania,[103] Burundi,[104] Equatorial Guinea,[105] Zimbabwe and Gambia have not caused much opposition.
[110] The Bhil people of central India, who were hunter-gatherers in the past, adopted a system of attenuated patrilineal primogeniture identical to that of pastoral Samburu when they became agriculturalists.
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.
[125] Both Germans and Irish divided the land into equal shares until the early Modern Age, when impartible inheritance gradually took hold among both peoples.
[126] There is also evidence that in Schleswig Holstein, leaving the estate to the eldest son and giving only monetary compensation to his siblings was the prevailing practice since around the year 100.
However, although the gentry and the nobility in England practiced a relatively strict form of male primogeniture,[131] there was no clearly prevalent inheritance pattern among peasants, giving rise to a sort of "proto-capitalist" rural economy, the "absolute nuclear" family.
[132] During Late Medieval Times male ultimogeniture ("Borough-English") was the predominant custom in England, as it was the customary rule of inheritance among unfree peasants,[133] and this social class comprised most of the population according to the Domesday Book.
This, by the means of a small portion, and the liberality of their relations, they are able to stock, and which they, their children, and grandchildren, possess at an easy rent, till a nearer descendant be again preferred to it.
Prior to the advent of feudalism during Late Medieval times and the creation of the system above explained, no trace of male primogeniture or a similar custom existed in Scotland or elsewhere in the Celtic world.
Among many ancient Germanic tribes, on the other hand, male primogeniture determined succession to political office, the eldest son of a chief customarily succeeding his father.
[137] The contrary development occurred in South Africa, where the Afrikaner colonizers, who practiced partible inheritance,[138] were always opposed to the custom of male primogeniture prevalent among indigenous black peoples.
[16][139] In New Zealand, European colonizers chose any son to succeed to the family farm, without regards to his fraternal birth order,[140] while patrilineal primogeniture prevailed among the indigenous Maori people.
[142] By the time of the French Revolution it had become almost universal in this social class in western, central and northern Europe,[143] but inheritance customs among peasants varied widely across regions.
The fideicommissum, which in fact had little resemblance to the Roman institution of the same name, was almost the standard method of property transfer among the European nobility; Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Bohemia, Sweden and Italy were some of the countries where it became very popular among wealthy landowners, beginning in most cases around the early Modern Age.