Le partage des frères. Héritage masculin et reproduction sociale en Franche-Comté aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles

"Le partage des frères" : Male Inheritance and Social Reproduction in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Franche-Comté. Franche-Comté in the nineteenth century offers very clear example of the transformation of system of inheritance : the right accorded to male children gave way progressively to completely equal treatment of all children. A study of this mutation and the conditions that made it possible raises another more general question regarding systems of male inheritance and succession traditional peasant societies : that is, the relationships between inheritance and succession, the respective roles of familial relations and residence in the logic of such practices, the problem of the coexistence of the division of property and ties to the land, articulation the market and transmission of patrimony. Ultimately we perceive the methodological importance of making comparison, if paradoxical one, between such systems and those based on unity of succession and logic of "household" systems. Such comparison reveals both the social implications of these diverse practices and the basic principles organizing the transmission of property; it can also shed new light on the frequent geographical proximity of the two systems and on the many processes of change that apparently had implications for both.Derouet Bernard. Le partage des frères. Héritage masculin et reproduction sociale en Franche-Comté aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. In: Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations. 48ᵉ année, N. 2, 1993. pp. 453-474