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Is Inheritance Legitimate? pp 89–125Cite as

Bequest and Inheritance: Empirical Issues and France-U.S. Comparison

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Part of the book series: Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy ((SEEP))

Abstract

Inheritance has long been a favoured research topic in the social sciences. Marxists viewed it as a privileged channel of class reproduction from one generation to the next. In anthropological studies of traditional or primitive societies, it plays a major role in revealing the structure of kinship relations and in the exchange of words, women and goods. Psychosociologists consider it first of all as a moment of crisis, but also one of truth, when hidden family links and relations to siblings, lineage and marriage are suddenly brought to light; moreover, they insist upon the double dimension, ‘symbolic’ (or sentimental) and economic, of inherited goods, and upon their process of ‘appropriation’ — how the heir must ‘identify’ himself with these family goods and then decide what to do with them (either keep them, or sell them, or whatever).

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Authors
  1. Luc Arrondel
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  2. André Masson
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  3. Pierre Pestieau
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. SESO-UFSIA, Universiteit Antwerpen, Prinsstraat 13, B-2000, Antwerpen 1, Belgium

    Guido Erreygers

  2. Centrum voor Economie en Ethiek, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Naamsestraat 69, B-3000, Leuven, Belgium

    Toon Vandevelde

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© 1997 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Arrondel, L., Masson, A., Pestieau, P. (1997). Bequest and Inheritance: Empirical Issues and France-U.S. Comparison. In: Erreygers, G., Vandevelde, T. (eds) Is Inheritance Legitimate?. Studies in Economic Ethics and Philosophy. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03343-2_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-03343-2_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-08301-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-03343-2

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