primogeniture

primogeniture. The character of the inheritance custom has a great bearing on the social and political evolution of a country. Primogeniture, inheritance by the eldest son, developed in England after the Norman Conquest and had military implications—that the fief should not be subdivided lest it become incapable of fulfilling its feudal obligation. There were always regions where the custom did not apply—gavelkind was widespread in Kent and in parts of Wales giving partible inheritance, and the custom of borough English in some places gave inheritance to the younger son. One consequence of primogeniture, especially when buttressed by entail, as it was in the 17th and 18th cents., was to encourage the accumulation of large estates and restrict the proliferation of small proprietorships or peasant holdings. Since it applied also to titles, it meant that the English nobility was a small group contrasting with thousands of impoverished noblemen to be found in many parts of the continent. But the custom had its critics and the plight of younger sons, forced to seek their fortunes because they had poor expectations, is a commonplace of 18th-cent. novels and drama. Primogeniture was abolished by legislation in 1926 in England and in 1964 in Scotland.

J. A. Cannon