Primogeniture

Primogeniture, term formerly applied in England, and in most continental European countries, to the right of the firstborn son to the property of a deceased ancestor (usually his father). According to the feudal system of the Middle Ages, primogeniture determined the disposition of property held as a reward for military service. Land of the father passed to the son thought best able to defend it—the elder or eldest. Under primogeniture, the eldest son or his issue, or, if no lineal descendants (male or female) existed, the eldest male in the next degree of consanguinity succeeded to all the property of which his ancestor died intestate (without having made a will) to the exclusion of all female and junior male descendants of equal degree of relationship. The purpose of primogeniture was accumulation or retention of wealth and property by avoiding the dividing up of land into smaller, less profitably worked sub plots. When female descendants alone survived, they did, however, divide the estate of the ancestor equally. Following adoption of the Statute of Wills (1540), under which the eldest son could be completely bypassed, primogeniture applied only in cases in which the deceased left no will. Primogeniture was completely abolished in England in 1925 and no longer exists in most European countries.

The term primogeniture has also been applied to the right of an eldest son of a king or other hereditary ruler to succeed to the sovereign power.