The inheritance represented obligations and burdens rather than personal gain. The association of several families in one house is clearly analogous to the house-community with which Sir H. Maine and M. de Laveleye have made us familiar as still existing in parts of Eastern Europe, and formerly among the peasantry of France. We might add, that the vestiges of a larger tribal community, analogous to the Teutonic pagus , seem traceable in Dr Rink's account of the customs of the Greenlanders, although he makes no such suggestion. When we take into account, further, the periodical meetings of the inhabitants of neighbouring hamlets for both festive and judicial purposes, the analogy to the pages of the ancient Germans appears nearly complete. The law and customs of Hindoostan divide the inheritance between the sons and other agnates.
Females only inherit on failure of all male heirs.
Sir George Campbell, Essay before quoted, p. 175. See Waltz, Das alte Recht der sal. See Lex Angl , tit. Leges aut . Lex Alam ., tit.