inheritance

Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an extremely important role in human societies. Both anthropology and sociology have made detailed studies in this area. Many cultures feature patrilineal succession, also known as gavelkind, where only male children can inherit. Some cultures also employ matrilineal succession only passing property along the female line. Other practices include primogeniture, under which all property goes to the eldest child, or often the eldest son, or ultimogeniture, in which everything is left to the youngest child. Some ancient societies and most modern states employ partible inheritance, under which every child inherits (usually equally). Historically, there were also mixed systems:In eastern Swedish culture, from the 13th century until the 19th century, sons inherited twice as much as daughters. This rule was introduced by the Regent Birger Jarl, and it was regarded as an improvement in its era, since daughters were previously usually left without.Among ancient Israelites, the eldest son received twice as much as the other sons.Among Galician people it was typical that all children (both men and women) had a part of the inheritance, but one son (the one who inherited the house) inherited one-third of all the inheritance. This son was called the mellorado. In some villages the mellorado even received two-thirds of all the inheritance. This two-thirds would be all the family's lands, while other children received their part in money.According to Islamic inheritance jurisprudence, sons inherit twice as much as daughters when no will is left. The complete laws governing inheritance in Islam are complicated and take into account many kinship relations (so wills are usually recomended), but in principle males inherit twice as females. There is one interesting exception: The Indonesian Minangkabau people from West part of Sumatra island despite being strong Muslims employ only complete matrilineal succession with property and land passing down from mother to daughter. They find no contradiction between their culture and faith. Many states have inheritance taxes, under which a portion of any estate goes to the government, though the government technically is not an heir.
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(n.)
Transmission and reception by animal or plant generation.
  

(n.)
The act or state of inheriting; as, the inheritance of an estate; the inheritance of mental or physical qualities.
  

(n.)
That which is or may be inherited; that which is derived by an heir from an ancestor or other person; a heritage; a possession which passes by descent.
  

(n.)
Possession; ownership; acquisition.
  

(n.)
A perpetual or continuing right which a man and his heirs have to an estate; an estate which a man has by descent as heir to another, or which he may transmit to another as his heir; an estate derived from an ancestor to an heir in course of law.
  

(n.)
A permanent or valuable possession or blessing, esp. one received by gift or without purchase; a benefaction.
  

<programming, object-oriented> In object-oriented programming, the ability to derive new classes from existing classes. A derived class (or "subclass") inherits the instance variables and methods of the "base class" (or "superclass"), and may add new instance variables and methods. New methods may be defined with the same names as those in the base class, in which case they override the original one.
For example, bytes might belong to the class of integers for which an add method might be defined. The byte class would inherit the add method from the integer class.
See also Liskov substitution principle, multiple inheritance.
(2000-10-10)

TAX, INHERITANCE - A tax assessed against the beneficiaries of an estate base on the amount received by each beneficiary and that beneficiary's relationship to the decedent (that is, the shares of close relatives are sometimes assessed at lower rates).