Intestate succession

Roman law

The basic unit of society in ancient Rome was the “house,” the extended family ruled by its head, the paterfamilias, to whom his wife, his slaves, and possibly several generations of his descendants were subject and in whom title to all property was vested, so that a son or any other member of the house, even as an adult, did not own anything until he had been released from membership by emancipation. The paterfamilias was responsible for all liabilities incurred by any member. The Roman house of those early times resembled the system that prevailed in Japan until very recently. But whereas in Japan the leader of the house had just one successor, under the system of the Twelve Tables the Roman paterfamilias was succeeded by as many new ones as there were sui heredes—i.e., persons who by the death of the chief were freed from his power and thus became persons sui iuris. If a house chief died without being survived by sui heredes, the law of the Twelve Tables provided that the estate (familia) could be acquired by the nearest agnatic relative—i.e., the person related to the decedent by male descent who would be closest to him. If there was no such person, the estate could be had by the Gentiles, who seem to have been the clanlike group—composed of all descendants of a real or mythical ancestor—that apparently had ceased to play a significant role in Roman society even at the time of the Twelve Tables. This arrangement for succession seems to have been so unsatisfactory that it became customary—and even a moral, religious, and political duty—to eliminate its coming into play by the execution of a testament. The very name “intestate succession” (successio ab intestato) indicates that dying without having made a will constituted an exceptional situation.

As Rome grew into an empire, the system of the Twelve Tables became less and less satisfactory. The house of olden times receded in significance; relationship through females came to play as much a role in the consciousness of the people as that through males; and wives mostly ceased to be subject to the power of their husbands or their husbands’ house chiefs. Adaptation of the law to the new structure of the family was made, first by the heads of the judicial system, the praetors, and then by imperial legislation. But the changes were unsystematic and halfhearted. In its final stage, the intestacy law became such a patchwork that in 543 and 548 ce the emperor Justinian found it necessary to make an entirely new beginning. By Novels (Novellae Constitutiones post Codicem, part of the Corpus Juris Civilis), a new order of intestacy was established. Relatives of a decedent were divided into four classes: (1) the descendants of the decedent, (2) the ascendants of the decedent, his brothers and sisters of the full blood, and the children of brothers and sisters of the full blood, (3) the decedent’s brothers and sisters of the half blood and the children of such brothers and sisters, and (4) the other collaterals of the decedent related to him in the nearest grade of consanguinity. No person in a more remote class was to succeed as long as the decedent was survived by a member of a prior class. The surviving spouse stood outside the four classes of relatives. He or she was to succeed only if there was no relative at all. As long as any relative, no matter how remote, could be found, the family wealth was not to be diverted from the bloodline. But a widow’s needs were ordinarily taken care of by the dowry, which, given to the husband, usually by her family, at the time of the marriage, was to be hers after the husband’s death. For the exceptional case of a “poor widow”—i.e., a widow without dowry—a share in the estate was provided. Distribution among members of the same class was not in all respects clearly regulated by Justinian’s text, and so several points remained controversial.

Common law

Justinian’s scheme was influential in the practice of the English ecclesiastical courts in their dealings with personal property. But in England the surviving spouse was treated much more generously. A surviving husband had no need to succeed to his wife’s personal property upon her death. With the sole exception of choses in action not reduced to possession (i.e., liabilities due to the wife not yet paid), he already owned all of her personal property by virtue of the marriage. But English custom gave the widow one-third of her predeceased husband’s estate if he was survived by descendants and one-half if he was survived by other relatives. English ecclesiastical court practice also clarified some of the points that had been left open in Justinian’s codification, abandoning the distinction between the siblings of the full blood and those of the half blood (although under the Canons of Descent to real property applied by the secular courts, the latter remained excluded). The English ecclesiastical practice was codified in the Statute of Distribution in 1670. This in turn became the model for state legislation in the United States, although the state laws show considerable variation in many respects.