Zadruga on trial – the 19th century Serbian joint family household between protection of collective possession and affirmation of private property

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper aims to trace the historical remodeling of a traditional, agnate-centered, and male-dominated inheritance law of Serbian joint family household – traditionally known as zadruga – into a modern and individualistic one. The paper relies on the contemporary idea that the legal text does not possess any objective meaning a priori, but gains sense only through its interpretation by supreme courts rulings and doctrinal critics. Therefore, the paper puts aside the law, i.e. the Serbian Civil Code from 1844 and turns to two until now largely neglected sources: case law (i.e. superior court rulings) and the legal doctrine (i.e. scholarly writing). Interpreted from such a perspective, the Serbian ‘zadruga law’ of the 19th century discloses particular interest in a series of judicial controversies in which individuals’ inheritance rights progressively and successfully challenged the integrity of joint family household holdings. In this regard, the paper closely examines the court decisions holding on inheritance rights of widows and separated sons as well as the case of succession of unmarried girls acting as zadruga members. From the perspective of demographic tendencies, agrarian opportunities, and the changing ecology of the time, these findings challenge the established historiographic narratives on the 1844 Serbian Civil Code and reveal the broader social context of its implementation.