Saturday 30 January 2016

More On The Family Inheritance System Constituted Globally

By Donna Bell


These systems involves the processes that determine who will be the heir or heirs of properties upon the death of its owner. Inheritance also designates the property itself. In our modern society the process is regulated by the law. The law is commonly known as the law of succession and in it there is the family inheritance system to help in this.

Deceased leaves behind a will. This is a document that states clearly who should benefit from the properties left behind. Most circumstances, the law states that the spouse is part of the will and cannot be excluded in this. States following community property system, the partners in a marriage are automatically entitled to half of the property they made while they were married unless they have a written agreement to refute this claim.

The Islamic laws are different from others. They state that the son will get twice of whatever property the daughter gets. The laws have their own complications too for they do consider all relatives related to the family of the deceased. Even in such cases the male has to inherit double of whatever the daughters get.

In Spain, all children without discrimination need to participate in the succession process. The child that inherited the house and the larger share of their land had the bigger share taking a third of all the properties. Just like the Islamic system, in Sweden, sons inherited twice the share of what their sisters get; this happened between the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries.

Among most African countries, when a spouse got remarried, they would have to share the property they inherited from their deceased husbands with the new husband. Laws have been put in place to ensure that in such situations the spouse retains the full rights in any property she inherited.

Modern society has the obligation of allowing children of the deceased to get their rightful share from the properties left behind by their parents. Some societies do not allow children to inherit from their parents apart from the few circumstances where the child is allowed to claim a share.

During the early days, most states allowed a husband to have many wives and we still have states that allow it till today. Before the man died, he would share his properties equally. In cases where you find the man died without dividing his properties equally and leaving, that is when you find family members fighting and taking each other to courts.

There should be equal rights of inheritance among men, women and girls. In the past, women and girls used to be discriminated by getting little or nothing of the properties being inherited. The laws governing these lines of succession ought to ensure that there is equality in the ranks between mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and more so on daughters and sons. Civil laws should be supreme over customary laws especially those that discriminate girls and women.

In some situations, the deceased may not have a will. These may cause fights among family members and some even go to courts to seek legal action. The government has put in laws which help in such cases and reduce disputes among the family members.




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