Opinion ID: 1113494
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Roman Law

Text: The Roman institution of forced heirship traces its roots to two very important concepts in early Roman society: the familia and the sacra. The familia, the Roman concept of family, consisted of the paterfamilias (head of family) and those who, by male relationship, were under his power. The familia was the basic unit of society, and its preservation was considered essential to maintaining societal order. [4] To foster the maintenance of this unit, the pater was granted very extensive powers over the familia, including the vesting of all rights and property acquired by any member of the family. Clothed with such extensive powers, there was no room for restrictions on the paterfamilias' absolute power of disposition over familia property; thus, the pater had unrestricted freedom to distribute his estate in legacies to anyone. [5] If the pater died intestate, however, his children were first in line to inherit. Of equal importance to the familia in early Roman society was the sacra, the family cult to the individual household gods. The Romans deemed the continuance of this cult by successive heirs from one generation to the next essential to their society. [6] The continuance of the familia sacra was so important to this society that other areas of the law were tailored with a view to insuring its continuance. Thus, for example, if a man had no child, he was permitted to adopt one so that the sacra could be continued. In furtherance of these two very important customs, the first Roman wills had for their purpose not the disposition of property but rather the institution of an heir to continue the familia and the sacra. [7] Indeed, any will which failed to institute an heir was held invalid. [8] Moreover, as a protection against the possibility that the instituted heir might not enter the succession, the testator was permitted to name one or more substitute heirs ( substitutio vulgaris ) who could enter in the event the instituted heir refused to do so. Despite these efforts to protect and preserve the familia and the sacra, the testator's absolute freedom of disposition by legacy soon became a threat to the vitality of these institutions. That is, because the testator frequently disposed of most or all of his assets by legacies, the instituted heir often refused to enter the succession as all he was left with was the undesirable burden of paying the testator's debts and carrying out any testamentary instructions. As a result, the testator's estate would devolve intestate and there would be no heir to carry on the familia and the sacra. Seeking to remedy the foregoing problem, there developed in Roman Law certain restrictions on the paterfamilias' absolute power of disposition. One of the most famous of such limitations was the lex Falcidia, which reserved a minimum one-fourth of the testator's estate [9] for the instituted heir (the falcidian portion). Excessive legacies which impinged the falcidian portion were subject to proportionate reduction. Notably, however, this restriction on a testator's absolute freedom of testation was designed solely to protect the institutions of the familia and the sacra it was not necessary that the instituted heir be a relation of the testator, only that the instituted heir be a person capable of inheriting. [10] Although the foregoing limitation on a testator's freedom of disposition was not developed out of a concern for the testator's heirs, [11] there existed at the same time two other restrictions on the paterfamilias' absolute freedom of testation which did have protection of the testator's heirs, including his children, as their purposes. The first such limitation was found in the rules of exheredatio. This limitation reflected the Romans' general disapproval of disinherison by subjecting it to extremely strict formalities. Failure to comply with these formalities would result in the nullity of the will. Importantly, however, this limitation was strictly a matter of form and did not interfere with the testator's power to dispose of familia property as he saw fit. More importantly, it provided no direct assurance that children of the testator would be provided for in the will. The second limitation on the testator's freedom of disposition was in the querela inofficiosi testament. [12] The querela was based on the principle that a man owed a moral duty toward certain close relatives, and disinherison of these relatives without just cause violated this duty. [13] The relatives protected by the querela were ascendants and descendants of the decedent, whenever they had been unjustly disinherited, and cousins, brothers and sisters of the decedent, when the decedent had preferred others of questionable character or morals. [14] Initially, if one of these heirs established the requisite conditions, the will would be declared void and the heir would receive his intestate portion. This sanction was subsequently changed such that the complainant would receive a reasonable share of the estate, but the entire will was not disturbed. Later the complainant's portion under the querela was changed again, this time to fix it at one-quarter of an intestate share, and the complainant could pursue this amount if he received less in the will. Finally this portion was changed one last time by Justinian, who increased the portion to one-third of the estate if there were four or fewer children and one-half of the estate if there were five or more. These latter portions came to be known as pars legitima or the légitime. [15]