Land Inheritance Research Articles

Inheritance of land in the Jordanian hill country

Inheritance of land in the Jordanian hill country

Responding to population pressure in the rural Kenya.

This paper reviews different historical and contemporary factors responsible for population pressure in the rural Kenya. It is argued that the process is not new, having its roots in the colonial administration. Cultural backgrounds, the economic setting of the rural population and the large moisture stricken areas are responsible for population pressure in the postindependence era. Different ways of mitigating population pressure such as (i) encouraging land use options that least stress the human ecology and natural environment; (ii) reducing the number of people and; (iii) diversifying sources of income to supplement earnings from agriculture so as to reduce direct dependence on land are discussed. Constraints with these strategies, particularly socio-economic factors such as land inheritance and the need for many children, are also discussed with a view to establishing the way out to sustainable development.

Land Inheritance by the Local Yangban under the Late Yi Dynasty

Land Inheritance by the Local Yangban under the Late Yi Dynasty

Las visitas a Yanquecollaguas de los siglos XVI y XVII: organización social y tenencia de tierras

This work presents an installment on the study of the visitas to the yanquecollaguas towns of the Coica valley, in the peruvian south andean region. These visitas consist of population census, agricultural land and livestock surveys of the most important sector of the colonial province of Collaguas, juridiction of Arequipa: the repartimientos of Yanquecollaguas. The analysis is based on the two unpublished visitas of 1604 and 1615-1617, and will also dwell with the visitas of 1591 published by Franklin Pease G. Y. (1977b) and the fragmented one of 1667 published by Guillermo Caldos Rodríguez (1984). Utilizing the rich information offered by the visitas to the yanquecollaguas, it is intented to establish what was the social organization and the tenure system and inheritance mechanism of agricultural land and of livestock during the viceroyalty. An attempt is made to compare the viceroyal —colonial— and the actual systems with respect to the institutions governing tenure and inheritance of the agricultural land and pastures.

Peasant Household Formation and the Organization of Rural Labor in the Valley of Segura During the Nineteenth Century

Meant as a contribution to the recently initiated debate over household and family composition in the Mediterranean area, the study presents the first results of an investigation of class differences in family behavior in several rural communities in the Segura Basin of southeastern Iberia during a period of agrarian change. A variety of measures and classifications suggest the predominance of the nuclear family, but also that the household formation process and the family life cycle are conditioned by the land tenure system, inheritance practices, and transmission of the patrimony. Also, patterns of mobility and demographic mechanisms exert a powerful influence over family forms and household structures.

Muslim Families in Contemporary Black Africa

Islam has spread into many different civilizations. Although these civilizations have accepted the Islamic faith, they have frequently distorted, if not actually rejected, the rules of filiation and of family relationships, the rulings of the Koran on engagement, marriage, and conjugal relations, and the right of inheritance, all in the name of ijtihad, the right of interpretation. The black African populations that have embraced Islam have thus placed more emphasis on the actual faith than on its legal, political, or social aspects. Islam has contributed to the breakdown of the extended family as it was traditionally conceived by instituting the right to a share of the land inheritance, which had formerly remained undivided and was managed by the oldest male of the line. It has affected the principle of the total separation of property between spouses by introducing the notion of inheritance from one another but has not contradicted the practices which form the basis of marriage: authority over the marriage of the children, dowry, preferential marriage. By stressing patriarchal power it has, in fact, reduced feminine authority. Muslim families today are involved in a capitalist- or collectivist-type industrial revolution as well as in the process of urbanization and the spread of Western culture. They are undergoing profound changes. This, however, is not leading to Western-type marriages, at least not for the time being, because the solidarity of family relationships, even if modified, is very strong.

The social organization of property and work: a study of migrants from the rural Ecuadorian sierra

The point of departure for this explanation of migration is a description and comparison of the patterns of access to property and labor in two generations, the migrants' generation and that of their parents. The author finds significant differences between the two generations and develops two points. First, changes in the mortality rate of seniors delayed the younger generation's inheritance of land. The dependent position of the juniors limited their ability to enter into labor arrangements used by their parents. Second, development in Ecuador and the associated changes in the organization of work exacerbated the constraints of this structurally anomalous position and promoted outmigration. [Ecuadorian Andes, rural‐urban migration, social organization of property and work, inheritance and migration, economic transition and migration]

Mbembe Men's Associations

The role of the men's associations has to be understood in the context of the precolonial political structure of the Mbembe and particularly the pattern of relationships both within any one village and within a village group. The latter constituted a kind of in that the head of each village in the group was believed to be the priest of the same particular, named variety of the Okpobam cult. Generally all Mbembe village heads and many heads of kin groups were priests of this earth cult, conceived to provide a vital link between the living and the dead, but this fact seems not to have been used as the basis for any alliance between village groups. The politically crucial aspect of this cult was that within the parish sharing a variety of Okpobam it anathematized deliberate killing and provided, through the sanctuary and the cleansing sacrifice offered by its priests, a means of peaceful reconciliation between the kin of the slayer and of the slain. Each village was composed of different kin groups. Inheritance of land, houses, and house sites was patrilineal, and women moved to their husbands' residences upon marriage. Therefore the male population was spatially divided by patrilineal descent, and distinct co-resident patrilineages and patriclans existed. At the same time matrilineal descent was also recognized, and the population was divided into dispersed matrilineages and matriclans. These were of crucial significance, since rights over movable property and most jural

Le Play et la famille-souche des Pyrénées : politique, juridisme et science sociale

Lorsqu'on relit aujourd'hui l'ɶuvre de Le Play et de ses continuateurs, on est frappé par la place qu'y occupent autant dans ses propositions théoriques que dans ses conclusions politiques les sociétés occitanes. Ce dualisme entre projet scientifique sociologique et projet de réforme sociale marque le contenu de l'ensemble des ouvrages publiés par le maître et ses disciples jusqu'à ce qu'en 1885, trois ans seulement après sa mort, une scission institutionnelle sépare le courant delàScience socialeet celui de laRéformesociale.

Land Inheritance in Early Modern County Sligo

Land Inheritance in Early Modern County Sligo

Rent Seeking, Noncompensated Transfers, and Laws of Succession

My purpose in this paper is to analyze inefficiencies that may emerge from the noncompensated transfer of valued rights among persons. This source of inefficiency has not, to my knowledge, been fully incorporated either in the economic theory of property rights or in orthodox tax analysis. My discussion is based on the elementary fact that all noncompensated transfers are rents to the recipients. Implications for the emergence of rent-seeking behavior follow straightforwardly. The now-familiar propositions to the effect that rent seeking may dissipate economic value can be applied to a variety of transfer settings, only a few of which are explored in this paper.1 To the extent that the efficiency criterion is the relevant norm, direct implications may be drawn for policy with respect to the laws or rules for succession.

Illegitimacy and Mode of Land Inheritance among Austrian Peasants

This paper deals with how premarital sex and resulting illegitimacy are accommodated in a society in which marriage is largely determined by property conditions, and how far in this context property conditions influence the pattern and frequency of illegitimacy. Goody (1976:13), in his comparative study on the impact of property on marriage and mating, holds the view that, If women are receivers of male property, whether by inheritance or else by dowry, then the nature of the marriages they make will be influenced by this fact. Such influence will be particularly strong when the basic means of production, i.e., land in an agricultural society, is included in this inheritance. Where property is transmitted to women in this way then there will be a strong tendency to control their marriages. An heiress cannot just marry anyone; her partner is more likely to be chosen for her ... for unless a woman marries well her status or her standard of living drops, which is often as much a matter of concern to herself as to her kinsfolk.

Irish Immigration to Britain, 1911–1951: Patterns and Policy

T^rom the early nineteenth century until the 1950s Ireland was the main Jsource of immigration into Britain, although over this period as a whole the intake of Irish was heavily off-set by emigration from Britain, and Britain was not the main destination for the majority of Irish emigrants.1 From the early 1960s 'New Commonwealth' immigrants began to exceed those from Ireland.2 Heavy migration, de-industrialization and periodic famine had become features of Irish society in the early nineteenth century. The ratio of Ireland's population to that of England and Wales was declining from the 1820s, and the trend was accentuated by the severity of the Irish Famine crisis of the later 1840s. In the second half of the century a fairly stable demographic pattern emerged, with secular population decline, late marriage, declining rates of nuptiality and fertility, and continuing heavy emigration,3 which together reflected the rigid sexual mores of post-Famine Ireland and the stem family system of land inheritance. High and sustained rates of emigration were accompanied by a growth in the size of agricultural holdings; marital fertility remained high, while non-agricultural employment within Ireland was contracting. This long history of migration can be viewed in strictly economic terms as a rational reaction to circumstances: in other words, as part of the general, secular process of rural-urban drift within a more or less integrated Anglo-Irish or Atlantic economy. Colonial dependency, direct rule from Westminster and free trade with Britain after the Act of Union limited and perpetuated deficiencies in the Irish urban-industrialized sector. The Irish became

Reasons for inequality among medieval peasants

The stratification of the medieval peasantry cannot be attributed only to the markets in land and agricultural products. The division between the free and the unfree and between the holders of family subsistence holdings and inadequate smallholdings is found in periods of very low production for the market. The complex interplay between land availability, technical progress, inheritance and endowment customs, demands for rent and tax and the resistance capacity of the peasants must also be examined. The relative strength of these various factors changed considerably during the medieval period, especially between 1300 and 1500 circa, when the land:labour ratio shifted dramatically.

The Effect of Registration of Title Upon Customary Land Rights in Kenya

When the State of Emergency was declared in 1952, most Africans in Kenya were living on the land in tribal reserves known as Native Land Units. Land rights within the Land Units were governed by native law and custom, though the demand for individual titles was strong, particularly in the Kikuyu Land Unit. However, administrators were divided about the desirability of hastening the demise of traditional institutions and concentrated their efforts on promoting agricultural development by taking measures against soil erosion and encouraging farmers to consolidate their holdings. It was only when large-scale compulsory land consolidation schemes were initiated in the mid-fifties among the Kikuyu that serious consideration was given to the nature of the title which the owner of a consolidated holding would acquire. Many people saw customary law as an obstacle to agricultural development (after all, the customary law relating to the allocation and inheritance of land was largely responsible for the considerable fragmentation of holdings that had occurred) and recommended that it be replaced by a system based on the registration of individual titles.

Ethnicity and the Social Scientist: Phonemes and Distinctive Features

In recent years, anthropologists and sociologists have been concerned with the problem of the definition of ethnic groups within various societies. This paperl suggests that the purpose of the researcher's definition largely determines the composition of the group and that research on ethnicity may be seen as analogous, in that respect, to approaches to research on language. For some types of research, it is sufficient to equate ethnic identity with tribal affiliation. This is true in areas of the world where it makes sense to record answers from informants to the question “What is your tribe?”. However, it is necessary in such areas for the researcher to ask the question directly, rather than ask one person to label another. In a recent article, A.N. Tucker (1973) discusses this same problem with regard to placenames. He cites, for Africa, cases where it was discovered that the official name of a particular place was not the place's name at all but had been supplied to researchers (linguists, anthropologists, geographers, or whatever) by a guide from another culture or linguistic group. Tucker (1973: 163) states that: Occasionally lack of liaison with even the guide would result in, for instance, a mountain being solemnly entered as ‘Jebel Sakit’—which in Arabic means ‘Just a mountain’! As research in social anthropology has turned from studying tribal units in more or less isolated areas toward urban-centered research, it has become apparent that one feature of urban social organization seems to be emergent ethnic or tribal groupings (Arens, 1973: 441). The criteria underlying such groupings, as opposed to those underlying traditional tribal affiliation, are often of a complex nature. Where, in rural areas, it has been possible to ask informants “What is your tribe?” and receive an unambiguous answer (usually related to parentage and/or land inheritance), in urban poly-ethnic communities today as well as in rural yet urban-linked areas, criteria for determining ethnicity are changing. In fact, as Arens has pointed out, in today's Africa common tribal identity in the sense of ethnic consciousness seems to be of particular importance in the cities, where ethnicity—in the absence of kinship—underlies social organization. The common assumption that rural areas are static and urban areas dynamic is being challenged.

Social Stratification and Land Inheritance Among Austrian Peasants1

The mode of land inheritance is an important factor in the formation of and relationship between strata in a peasant society. Here the different effects of undivided and divided land inheritance on kin relations with the subsequent consequences for social mobility between strata are discussed.

Kin Ties and Social Interaction in an Austrian Peasant Village with Divided Land Inheritance

Divided land inheritance is the basis for social interaction among rela tines in the peasant villages of the easternmost part of Austria. Special mar riage arrangements, primarily within the kin group, act as a counterbalance to land fragmentation. In frequency, intensity, and its effect on village society as a whole, this kind of interaction among relatives has no counter part among the Austrian peasants in other communities who practice un divided land inheritance.

Sideways or Downwards? Lateral and Vertical Succession, Inheritance and Descent in Africa and Eurasia

Much of the discussion of inheritance that has come from the pens of European scholars has turned on the question of partibility among the children, whether the property is divided among them all (gavelkind) or transmitted to a single member of the group by unigeniture-either by primogeniture (Borough French) or by ultimogeniture (Borough English). The concern of writers like Kenny in his treatise on primogeniture (i878) is to trace the emergence of the Norman system of favouring the eldest son out of the earlier, Celtic, method of partition, a process he attributes to the military duties required of feudal tenants (I878: I8). Kenny distinguishes Welsh gavelkind (division among the family) from the 'more primitive' form of Irish gavelkind, which promoted division among the clan (I878:4). Another theme of major concern, one that affects succession to office more than inheritance to property, had to do with the inclusion or exclusion of daughters from the enjoyment of some or all of the father's estate; by the Celtic law, for example, they were excluded from the inheritance of military lands. The emphasis on the way in which property is transmitted to the children has led writers to pay too little attention to another major difference between systems of inheritance and succession, that is, whether the property or office in question passes laterally to siblings or lineally to offspring. In an earlier analysis of inheritance I argued that since property had eventually to drop a generation, we could for many purposes reduce systems of inheritance to their inter-generational component, that is, to the question of whether property passed 'directly' to children (agnatically) or indirectly to sister's children (in a uterine manner). For some purposes this approach is adequate, but for others it neglects the very important implications of the sideways or downwards movement of exclusive rights. In this paper I want to explore the distribution of these different modes of transmission and to examine some of the concomitants. The distribution of modes of succession, inheritance and descent displays major differences in the two great continental areas of the Old World. The first of these turns upon sex. Africa is characterised by homogeneous transmission (that is, from male to male and female to female), whether of property (Goody i969a) or of office (Goody I969b). Whereas in the major societies of Europe and Asia property, and even office often pass between members of both sexes by the process which I have called 'diverging devolution'. 'Diverging devolution' is always an inter-generational process, since property is channelled to a person's children of both sexes. It is a form of vertical transmission

Marriage Prestations, Inheritance and Descent in Pre-Industrial Societies

An attempt is made to explore the nature of dowry and to explain why certain features such as bilateral inheritance, bilocal marriage, endogamy and hypergamy are often associated with it. It begins by laying out the general categories of rights and goods transferred at or through marriage. It then discusses different forms of inheritance and descent, pointing out the variable factors involved and relating them in particular to the inheritance of land and hence to problems of residence. Finally, systems of inheritance are linked with the broad types of marriage payment, and it is pointed out that dowry is not the opposite of bridewealth, being a settlement on the wife, either directly from the parents, or indirectly from the husband.