Synopses & Reviews
Eileen Spring presents a fresh interpretation of the history of inheritance among the English gentry and aristocracy. In a work that recasts both the history of real property law and the history of the family, she argues that one of the principal and determinative features of upper-class inheritance was the virtual exclusion of females from land homing. Tracing the gradual nullification of common law rules under which 40 percent of English land would have been inherited or held by women, Spring makes possible a fuller understanding of the social history of land law.
"(A) lively and combative book .... It will be quite impossible for social or legal historians in the future to ignore the arguments presented here; the subject will never be quite the same again, and that is a real achievement". -- Times Literary Supplement
"A highly original and provocative book which overturns a great deal of accepted wisdom, with implications for legal, family, and women's history". -- Continuity and Change
"Spring accomplishes an essential goal in writing legal history, she makes a highly technical and complex topic accessible to a wide audience and she does so with a timely twist". -- Law and History Review
A provocative analysis that recasts inheritance law and the history of the family
Review
[M]akes a highly technical and complex topic accessible to a wide audience and she does so with a timely twist.
Law and History Review
Review
It will be quite impossible for social or legal historians in the future to ignore the arguments presented here.
Times Literary Supplement
Review
Ingeniously original, Spring's work is sure to generate a great deal of rethinking .
Morris S. Arnold, United States Court of Appeals
Review
[A] significant and highly original study.
Choice
Review
This is an admirable study, lucidly and economically argued.
Cambridge Law Journal
Synopsis
Eileen Spring presents a fresh interpretation of the history of inheritance among the English gentry and aristocracy. In a work that recasts both the history of real property law and the history of the family, she finds that one of the principal and determinative features of upper-class real property inheritance was the exclusion of females. This exclusion was accomplished by a series of legal devices designed to nullify the common-law rules of inheritance under whichhad they prevailed40 percent of English land would have been inherited or held by women.
Current ideas of family development portray female inheritance as increasing in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but Spring argues that this is a misperception, resulting from an incomplete consideration of the common-law rules. Female rights actually declined, reaching their nadir in the eighteenth century. Spring shows that there was a centuries-long conflict between male and female heirs, a conflict that has not been adequately recognized until now.