"Primogeniture" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... arched entrance to the ice-house; always on the same brick, and never more than a single pair, though two broods of five each are raised there every summer. How do they settle their claim to the homestead? By what right of primogeniture? Once the children of a man employed about the place oologized the nest, and the pewees left us for a year or two. I felt towards those boys as the messmates of the Ancient Mariner(1) did towards him after he had shot the albatross. But the pewees came back at ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... habit of a Friar Minor, which he received in the principal church of the town, in the presence of a numerous concourse of people, after having first fulfilled two conditions which the father had prescribed for him: The first was, to give to the poor all that he had inherited by his right of primogeniture; the second was, to renounce all the rest of his fortune. It was in the same town that he lived a most holy life, as had been foretold, honored by many miracles; now by permission of the Holy ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... one year but one eighteenth as many children as the same number of families in the poorer neighborhood of Cherry Hill. Thus poverty multiplies itself rapidly, while wealth concentrates and needs no primogeniture to hold it together, because its numbers do not increase; and a similar fact, but not so extreme, appears in the reference to our Back Bay region in our own statistics, and in the statistics of Philadelphia. Thus it seems that we are destined to have the ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... fully recognized. The man is of more value than the mother in the scale of being whatever her graces and virtues may be. If these Jewish ideas were obsolete they might not be worth our attention, but our creeds and codes are still tinged with the Mosaic laws and customs. The English law of primogeniture has its foundation in the above text. The position of the wife under the old common law ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... from the monarch of this land, To parley with you, and depart unscathed. These pledges, strangers, I would see observed By you and by my sisters and my sire. Now, father, let me tell thee why I came. I have been banished from my native land Because by right of primogeniture I claimed possession of thy sovereign throne Wherefrom Etocles, my younger brother, Ousted me, not by weight of precedent, Nor by the last arbitrament of war, But by his popular acts; and the prime cause Of this I deem ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... Although the youngest of the king's brothers, he had always been regarded as the future King of England, and had his father survived until he reached the age of manhood, he would probably have succeeded directly to the throne. The law of primogeniture was by no means strictly observed among the Saxons, a younger brother of marked ability or of distinguished prowess in war being often chosen by a father to succeed him in place of his ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... some Account of the second Royal House of Scots, the oldest of the Milesian Race, and the Posterity of Eber." This Race then being avowed the oldest, in Respect of Primogeniture, must, of Course, have been prior in Point of Dignity and Sway, or at least, equally entitled to the Election of the People to such Ranks; were not those by violent Measures annexed to the Heremonian Line: Yet, however this might have been, ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... unfavourable to that racial dispersion which, under wise guidance, builds up an oceanic empire. The grievances of the ancien regime had helped to scatter on the shores of the St. Lawrence the seeds of a possible New France. Primogeniture was ever driving from England her younger sons to found New Englands and expand the commerce of the motherland. Let not France now rest at home, content with her perfect laws and with the conquest of her "natural frontiers." Let her rather strive to regain the first place in colonial activity ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... divided among themselves—all in the name of philosophy: and it's a devilish fine sort of philosophy; that is, when you haven't a rap in your pocket, and when you prove that everybody who has must give it up. He came to my house the other day, and he was jawing away about primogeniture, and entail, and direct taxation, and equal electoral districts, and I don't know what besides. 'Walters,' said I—'Walters, you've got nothing to share, and so you don't mind a general division. When you have, you'll want to stick to what's ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... In the barren Auvergne Plateau of France, the number of younger sons who become priests is extraordinary. Many daughters become nuns. Celibacy, seconded by extensive emigration, clears the field for the eldest son and the system of primogeniture which the poverty of this rugged highland has established as a fixed institution in the Auvergne.[1343] A careful statistical investigation of the geographical origins of the Catholic priesthood in Europe might throw interesting light on the influences of environment. ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... to do with yourself to-day? If you be disengaged, I vote we dine together at White's, and then we will go down to the House. I will take you to the smoking-room and introduce you to Bright, and we will trot him out on primogeniture." ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... of real grandees of Spain there were but forty-nine, although the number of titled families was much larger—owned all the country, except that vast portion of it which had reposed for ages in the dead-hand of the Church. The law of primogeniture, strictly enforced, tended with every generation to narrow the basis of society. Nearly every great estate was an entail, passing from eldest son to eldest son, until these were exhausted, in which case a daughter ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... resistance,"—the summoning of men to free themselves from oppressive restraint; and he was highly successful until he called on them for severe self-sacrifice, when his supporters were apt suddenly to fail him. Virginia gladly followed his lead in abolishing primogeniture and entail, and overthrowing the Established Church. She even consented, in 1778, to abolish the African slave-trade, being then in little need of more slaves than she possessed. In 1779 he planned a far more radical and costly project—a general emancipation. All slaves born after ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... either live in gloomy seclusion upon their private funds, wherever the privilege of primogeniture has enabled them to do so; or, having no funds at all (the case of ninety-nine in one hundred), they go into the army; that profession, the profession of arms, being regarded as the only one compatible with an edelmann's pretensions. ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Gond zamindars, and had been given the zamindari status by the Marathas, were subsequently made Feudatory Chiefs of the Nandgaon and Chhuikhadan States. These chiefs now marry and the States descend in their families by primogeniture in the ordinary manner. As a rule, the Bairagi landowners and moneylenders are not found to be particularly good specimens ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... feudal and patriarchal custom of recognizing only one heir; then, by a quite contrary application of the principle of equality, the admission of all the children to a share in their father's estate, and, very recently also among us, the definitive abolition of the right of primogeniture. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... instills love of country, ruralizes taste, borrows some of its ideals from Goethe's pedagogic province, and perhaps even from Gilman's pie-shaped communities, with villages at the center irradiating to farms in all directions. In England, where by the law of primogeniture holdings are large and in few hands, this training has never flourished, as it has greatly in France, where nearly every adult male may own land and a large proportion will come to do so. So of processes. As a student in ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... measure was the appropriation of a million francs to indemnify the French Royalists, whose lands had been confiscated during the French Revolution. Next came the proposal of a law on sacrilege, and one for primogeniture. Both bills were strenuously opposed by the Liberals. Broglie exclaimed: "What you are now preparing is a social and political revolution, a revolution against the revolution which changed France nearly forty years ago." Old Lafayette was ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... two sorts, Arbitrary, and Naturall. Arbitrary, is that which is agreed on by the Competitors; Naturall, is either Primogeniture, (which the Greek calls Kleronomia, which signifies, Given ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... principles of heredity and primogeniture were among the strongest of feudal tendencies. Primogeniture had proved politically advantageous; and one of the best things in the Anglo-Saxon monarchy had been its avoidance of the practice, prevalent on the Continent, of kings dividing their dominions among their sons, ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... time as the eleventh century, when education could do so little in the way of restraining human passion and prejudice. As the whole feudal system, so far as the succession of power was concerned, was based upon the principle of primogeniture, it was the oldest son who succeeded to all his father's lands and wealth, the daughter or daughters being left under his absolute control. Naturally, such a system worked hardship for the younger brothers, but then as now it was easier ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... died out through distance and neglect, and the influence of the aristocracy and the church was altogether unknown. Even in Virginia, where, in consequence of the existence of domestic slavery on a large scale, and the laws of primogeniture and entail, a certain aristocratical feeling had sprung up, a jealousy of the British crown and parliament showed itself from first to last, at least as strongly as elsewhere; and the ink of the Declaration of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... govern. This is a fundamental principle of the constitution; nay, it is more—it is the palladium of our liberties! My lords, it is an easy matter to reign in Leaphigh. It requires no more than the rights of primogeniture, sufficient discretion to understand the distinction between reigning and governing, and a political moderation that is unlikely to derange the balance of the state. But it is quite a different thing to govern. His majesty is required to govern ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... awful vengeances, but it was a very lovely oddity. Their property was not large, and she knew every living thing on the place down to the dogs and pigs. And Miss Jemima, as the people always called her, transferring the MISS CROWTHER of primogeniture to the younger, who kept, ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... hideous according to a Chinese or negro) than the middle classes, from pick of women; but oh what a scheme is primogeniture for destroying Natural Selection! I fear my letter will be barely ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... might be your father," said the third man, "who stood before you, according to the laws of primogeniture. I dare say Rupert made love to his venerable cousin, if the truth were known, and induced her to overlook a generation, ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... jutting brick in the arched entrance to the ice-house. Always on the same brick, and never more than a single pair, though two broods of five each are raised there every summer. How do they settle their claim to the homestead? By what right of primogeniture? Once, the children of a man employed about the place ooelogized the nest, and the pewees left us for a year or two. I felt towards those boys as the messmates of the Ancient Mariner did towards ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... of the Revolution the succession to property was regulated in New York and the southern states by the English rule of primogeniture. The eldest son took all. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and the four New England states, the eldest son took a double share. It was Georgia that led the way in decreeing the equal distribution of intestate property, both real and personal; and between ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... had seven children in all, some of whom were scapegraces, and rebelled against the parental system of primogeniture and non-division of property which the Elector ordained. "Gustchen," the Electress writes about her second son:—"Poor Gus is thrust out, and his father will give him no more keep. I laugh in the day, and cry all night about it; for I am a fool with my children." Three of the ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had it constantly dinned in our ears that in this free land the ups and downs of fortune were such that the rich man of to-day was apt to be the beggar to-morrow; also that almost invariably a rich man's sons were reckless spendthrifts. These things, aided by the abolition of primogeniture and entails, it was said, were to prevent the growth of a moneyed aristocracy in this country. The propounders of this amiable theory never explained how the community received reparation for the destruction of wealth which the ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... that his conduct was natural enough, although it was too precipitate, because he would legitimately succeed his father in due course, as his eldest surviving son. But this was not so. The law of primogeniture was not law for Israel. The invisible King expressly reserved to Himself the right of appointing the ruler of His people, as is evident from Deut. xvii. 14 and 15. The government was theocratic, not monarchical nor democratic. David himself had been chosen and ...
— Men of the Bible; Some Lesser-Known Characters • George Milligan, J. G. Greenhough, Alfred Rowland, Walter F.
... to Paris, neither had she emigrated. Like most of the high nobility, who rightly enough believed that primogeniture and birth were of the last importance to THEM, she preferred to show her distaste for the present order of things, by which the youngest prince of a numerous family had been put upon the throne of the oldest, by remaining ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... some previous votes which asserted that, of those laws which were the very foundation of the Constitution, the first was that which assured the "crown to the reigning house and to its descendants in the male line, in the order of primogeniture.[13]" ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... Being regarded hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other systems of government, with peculiar favour; that the rule of succession in order of primogeniture was a divine institution anterior to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic, dispensation; that no human power, not even that of the whole legislature, no length of adverse possession, though it extended to ten centuries, could deprive the legitimate ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... to be limited to the paternal house, or to be extended to blood? The gifts had been made to the church in communion with Rome, because at that time no other existed,—to the first-born, as it were, because he was as yet the only son. Was then a right of primogeniture to be admitted in the church, as in noble families? Were the pretensions of one party to be favoured by a prescription from times when the claims of the other could not have come into existence? Could the Lutherans be justly excluded from these ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Hebraizing, whose real self belongs to a kind of negative Hellenism—a state of moral indifference, without intellectual ardour—is even painful." In the same manner he dealt with the movement to abolish Primogeniture, strongly urged by John Bright; the movement to legalize marriage with a wife's sister—"the craving for forbidden fruit" joined with "the craving for legality"; and the doctrine, then supposed to be incontrovertible, of Free Trade. In all these cases, he proposed ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... without laying claim to any title of nobility, our blood is as pure and our lineage as ancient as the most boasted in England. I had but one brother, who succeeded at our father's death to the broad lands and rich heritage of our name. The accursed law of primogeniture, to which I owe all the evil that has befallen me, of course debarred me from all share in the family estate. I had refused to enter the army, the church or the navy, though my inclinations were in favor of the latter profession; yet a stronger claim than ambition or a roving life kept me ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... He got the ease of our ancestors' acres, We had to haggle with butchers and bakers, We had their bills to pay—his all the money; Ours was but gall to drink—his tipple honey; He was the "Purbeck" and we were the "Lias." So we against Primogeniture's rule Held very ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, March 25, 1914 • Various
... as the perfection of human wisdom; while in reality it is based on conquest, shaken by revolution, and only qualified by disorder. Her boasted tenures are the relics of a half-abolished serfdom, wherein the cultivator was nothing, and the aristocrat everything, and in which a primogeniture extending from the King to the Gentleman often placed idiocy on the throne, and tyranny in the senate, and always produced disunion in families, monopoly in land, and peculation throughout every branch of the public ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... the Singhalese monarchy was elective in the descendants of the Solar race: in practice, primogeniture had a preference, and the crown was either hereditary or became the prize of those who claimed to be of royal lineage. On reviewing the succession of kings from B.C. 307 to A.D. 1815, thirty-nine eldest sons (or nearly one fourth), ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... law, for it had been written by a convention not elected for that purpose by the people. Nor had the people voted directly on the constitution. Jefferson was even more concerned about the remaining vestiges of feudalism, aristocracy, and privilege. He succeeded in eliminating primogeniture (the eldest child has greater inheritance rights than the younger children) and entails (a person could place restrictions on the use of his property in perpetuity). Both primogeniture and entail smacked of inequality and alienation of rights by one generation against ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... having no will of his own, was highly recommended by M. Venizelos. Thus the re-establishment of constitutional verity was to begin with the violation of a fundamental article of the Constitution—the succession by order of primogeniture.[12] M. Zaimis stood aghast—"wrung with emotion." M. Jonnart spoke eloquently and urgently: the Powers only sought the unity and liberty of Greece—the greatness of Greece, now divided, partly dismembered, in a state of anarchy, on the eve of civil war. The High Commissioner would do ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... purchase the Chieftainship of his family, from the Chief who was willing to sell it. I told him it was impossible for him to acquire, by purchase, a right to be a different person from what he really was; for that the right of Chieftainship attached to the blood of primogeniture, and, therefore, was incapable of being transferred. I added, that though Esau sold his birth-right, or the advantages belonging to it, he still remained the first-born of his parents; and that whatever agreement a Chief might make with any of the clan, the ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... and namesake he gave his dwelling house and lot lying to the north of the alley. As the custom of primogeniture prevailed it was but natural that William Jr. fell heir to the dwelling house of his father. At the time of this gift in December 1784, William reserved to himself an "absolute right and title to take away as much earth or dirt from said ground even up to my Dwelling House, if necessary ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... Nature, which cast my birth in a free and civilized country, in an age of science and philosophy, in a family of honourable rank, and decently endowed with the gifts of fortune. From my birth I have enjoyed the right of primogeniture; but I was succeeded by five brothers and one sister, all of whom were snatched away in their infancy. My five brothers, whose names may be found in the parish register of Putney, I shall not pretend to lament: but from my childhood to the ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... "logical" result of private property, but the law does not treat it as such. The right of bequest, or of gift at death, is limited in various ways in different countries. In countries where hereditary aristocracies exist, primogeniture is in some cases required by law, in others so strongly favored by public opinion that it is practically always followed. Custom limits bequests in England to members of the family, and wills given outside the ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... overweening army of diplomatic spies and busybodies; abstain from meddling in everybody's quarrels; redeem from taxation the workman's necessaries—a free breakfast-table; peremptorily legislate against the custom of primogeniture; encourage the distribution and transfer of land; and, under the aegis of the ballot, protect from the tyranny of the landlord and ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... provided they seemed to him clearly the outflow of a vital class-consciousness. For instance, he would have restored the trade corporations to their medieval status; inhibited the free disposal of farming land, and governed the German aristocracy under the English law of primogeniture. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... intellect in setting in order the affairs of his family. A few months sufficed for success in this task. In order to place an impassable abyss between himself and the world, he made a full and complete renunciation in favour of his brother Jean-Louis of his rights of primogeniture and all his titles to the seigniory of Montigny and Montbeaudry. The world is ever prone to admire a chivalrous action, and to look askance at deeds which appear to savour of fanaticism. To Laval this renunciation of worldly wealth and honour ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath
... land exceeds 400,000 acres. A feature of colonization on that canal is that half the area is held on condition of keeping up one or more brood mares, the object being to secure a good class of remounts. Succession to these grants is governed by primogeniture. On the Lower Bari Doab Canal a very large ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... influence in promoting migration cityward—a movement as wide as European civilization—but intensified there, where the inhabitants have not been tied through generations of inheritance or historic associations to particular fields, where primogeniture has no observance, and where the traditions are of the wilderness and the visions are ever of a promised land beyond. The city is on every boy's horizon. Its glow is in every prairie ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... of the legislature, and later as Governor of Virginia, he was chiefly instrumental in effecting several important reforms in the laws of that state,—the most notable were the abolition of the law of primogeniture, and the passage of a law making all religious denominations equal. From 1785 to 1789 he was Minister to France. On his return to America he was made Secretary of State, in the first Cabinet. While in this office, he became the leader of the Republican or Anti-Federalist ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... trained mob; and to it (he was not far from right here) he ascribed the temper of the community which he was set to care for and to rule. It was vexatious to his Tory spirit to see the democratic element, which had excluded primogeniture and the hereditary principle and large landed estates, so firmly bedded here, as if for a mighty superstructure; and his reform plans tended to a change to centralization. It was a marvel to him, that this work, which he deemed essential to the maintenance of British power here, had not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... These properties are subdivided by a father among his sons during his own lifetime, and descend in almost hereditary succession. A man can dispose of or barter his land to others; but a female never inherits, nor has primogeniture among the sons any peculiar rights or advantages. Tribes can only come into each other's districts by permission, or invitation, in which case, strangers or visitors are always well treated. The following extract from Captain ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... mistake is a pregnant one. The laws regulating the ownership and disposition of landed property not only affect the well-being but frequently the destiny of a people. The system of primogeniture and entail adopted by the Southern States of our Union favored the policy of great estates, and the ruinous system of landlordism and slavery which finally laid waste the fairest and most fertile section of the republic and threatened its life; while the New England States, in ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... be, you cannot be disturb'd at such a thing; is not the Right of Sovereignty yours by Primogeniture? can God himself take that away, when 'tis once given? are not you Lord Adam's eldest Son? are you not the firstborn Glory of the Creation? and does not the Government descend to you by the divine Right ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... at once driven to a step so unreasonable. The young man had done nothing which ought to offend him,—had, indeed, only obeyed him in coming down to South Wales. That custom of the country was good and valid, and wise. If he believed in anything of the world worldly, he believed in primogeniture in respect of land. Though Isabel was ever so sweet, duty was duty. Who was he that he should dare to say to himself that he could break through what he believed to be a law on his conscience without a sin? If he might permit himself to make a special exemption for himself in the indulgence ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... leave to present a bill to establish courts of justice in the State of Virginia; on the next day, to authorize tenants en tail to convey their estates in fee simple. This was immediately followed by other bills for the utter overthrow of primogeniture and the whole ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... Their animosity against the Church was the ground-swell of the storm which had washed away Charles X himself. The Sacrilege Law introduced in 1825 had revived the barbarous mediaeval penalty of amputating the hand of the offender. Charles's attempt to reintroduce primogeniture by declaring the French principle of the equal division of property to be inconsistent with the principle of monarchy had irritated the people less than the encouragement he had given to monastic corporations which were contrary to law. The controversy which followed between ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... and improper. So hath Plato intermingled his philosophy with theology, and Aristotle with logic; and the second school of Plato, Proclus and the rest, with the mathematics; for these were the arts which had a kind of primogeniture with them severally. So have the alchemists made a philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus our countryman hath made a philosophy out of the observations of a loadstone. So Cicero, when reciting the several ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... doctrinal terminology is too hard for a child to understand. Is this not absurd, when the same child can come home from school and talk glibly of a parallelepipedon, a rhombus, rhomboid, polyhedral angle, archipelago, law of primogeniture, the binomial theorem, and of a dicotyledon! He also learns French, German, Latin, Greek, and the argot of ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... place, aristocracy is kept up by family tyranny and injustice, due to the unnatural and iniquitous law of primogeniture. ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... every publican has three daughters of extraordinary charms. Lacking these signs we would do well to look askance at such a man's liquor, divining that in his brew there will be an undue percentage of water, for if his primogeniture is infected ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... revered name of Antoninus; and for the first time the Roman world beheld three emperors. [10] Yet even this equal conduct served only to inflame the contest, whilst the fierce Caracalla asserted the right of primogeniture, and the milder Geta courted the affections of the people and the soldiers. In the anguish of a disappointed father, Severus foretold that the weaker of his sons would fall a sacrifice to the stronger; who, in his turn, would be ruined by his ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... herds; the laws of succession were few and simple: a man's cattle, at death, were equally divided among his sons; or, if he had no sons, his daughters; or if he had no children, among his nearest relations. These nations seem to have had no idea of the rights of primogeniture, or that the eldest son had any title to a larger share of his father's effects ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... of high standing and large wealth. From his mother's family he acquired his baptismal name of Winfield. John Winfield survived his daughter, and dying intestate, in 1774, Winfield Mason acquired by descent as the eldest male heir (the law of primogeniture then being the law of Virginia) the whole of a landed estate and a portion of the personal property. The principal part of this large inheritance was devised to Winfield Scott, but, the devisee having married again and had issue, ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... years younger than his brother Napoleon, who by no right of primogeniture, but by right of success, was early looked upon as the head of the family of Bonaparte. He assumed the place of father to his little brother Louis, and a very unsatisfactory father he proved. Louis was studious, poetical, solid, honorable, and unambitious. His brother was resolved to make ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... and at the woman on the platform in hopes that some arresting gesture might summon him from this shadowy prison. But the audience sat still in a sheeplike, grazing sort of attention, and Mrs. Ormiston continued to exercise her distinguished querulousness on the subject of male primogeniture. So he remained rooted in this oppressive sense ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... I have the rights of primogeniture in my favor," he said. "I was born a day before you were, in the same city of New York. My mother's name was not down in the telephone list as Mrs. Wingfield, however—I look at it all philosophically, you understand—and it was just that which made the difference between you and me, outside ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... competitors who put forward claims to the crown, only three need be here mentioned. They were each descended from David, Earl of Huntingdon, brother of William the Lion and grandson of David I. The claimant who, according to the strict rules of primogeniture, had the best right was John Balliol, the grandson of Margaret, the eldest daughter of Earl David. His most formidable opponent was Robert Bruce of Annandale, the son of Earl David's second daughter, ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... however, two great elements in the nation's institutions, to sustain in its pride and efficiency this peculiar advantage, to wit, the entailment of estates, and the right of primogeniture. Those landed estates soon began to be subdivided, and in proportion as they dwindled into insignificance, so began to perish the prestige of their proprietors. The institution of African slavery served for a long time to aid in continuing the aristocratic features of Virginia society, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... to lose their son, this departure from his home was, I have no doubt, most bitter also to Cain himself. For he was compelled to leave, not only the common home, his dear parents and their protection, but his hereditary right of primogeniture, the prerogative of the kingdom and of the priesthood, and ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... although determined in theory by the ordinary law of primogeniture, was nevertheless, subject to repeated arbitrary changes. The uncertainty of the rule was acknowledged and deplored by the parliament,[105] and there was no order of which the nation, with any unity of sentiment, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... however, who thinks that a majority of the people, where universal suffrage exists, will submit long to a state of toil and mendicity. The majority would soon learn to exercise its political rights, and command its representatives to carry the laws abolishing primogeniture and entails one step further, and stop all devises of land and prohibit it from being an article of sale. (In a foot-note of the editorial:) We actually heard these and several such propositions discussed by a number of apparently very intelligent ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... showing their common origin. The clan system prevailed in Ireland, the clans being called Septs, and all having, as a surname, the name of the common ancestor. His representative, the chief, was known as the Carfinny; but the succession was not determined by the rules of primogeniture. It was always in one family, but the choice was made by election of the next heir. When a Carfinny died, another came into office who had been chosen on his accession as heir, or Tanist, and at the same time another Tanist ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... possible the actual fulfillment of his ideal. "America, just beginning to exist, has the science and the experience of all nations to direct her in forming plans of government." There is an equal distribution of landed property, freed from the laws of entail and primogeniture; there is no standing army, and there is freedom from ecclesiastical tyranny; education is general; there is no artificial rank in society, and from necessity Americans are not confined to single lines of industry; but various occupations ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... is, I believe, the only European country where private enterprise has pursued sylviculture on a really great scale, though admirable examples have been set in many others. In England the law of primogeniture, and other institutions and national customs which tend to keep large estates long undivided and in the same line of inheritance, the wealth of the landholders, the special adaptation of the climate to the growth of forest-trees, and the difficulty ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... Settlement and to vest the crown in a member of some house other than the Hanoverian, there is, of course, no occasion for such an act, and the throne may be expected to continue to pass from one member of the present royal family to another in strict accordance with the principles of heredity and primogeniture. The rules of descent are essentially identical with those governing the inheritance of real property at common law.[61] Regularly, the sovereign's eldest son, the Prince of Wales,[62] inherits. If he be not alive, the inheritance passes to his issue, male or female. If there ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... labor. As a rule, her husband administers her property, and, in cases of bankruptcy, the same is considered and disposed of as his own, unless a pre-marital contract secures the property to her. Wherever the right of primogeniture attaches to landed property, a woman, even if she be the first born, can not enter into possession if there be younger brothers. She can step in only when she has no brothers. In most German States, a married woman can contract only with the consent ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... all this chapter the begetting of the oldest son is made prominent, his name only is given, and the begetting of more "sons and daughters" is cursorily mentioned. Here is the first suggestion of the law of primogeniture responsible for so many of the evils that perplexed ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Society of Natural History become warmly interested in the discussion, but finally the whole population of the island took sides on the question, and debated it with great warmth. The area of their country is about the same as that of Great Britain; but as they have no law of primogeniture, nor entailment of estates, nor hereditary rank, they have no poverty and no over-population; all of the inhabitants were happy and well-educated, all had abundant leisure, and all were ready to examine the evidence concerning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... resulting from the power to cultivate the richer soils, in bringing about the division of land and the union of man is then shown, and illustrated by examples drawn from the history of the principal nations of the world, ancient and modern; and here the European system of primogeniture is examined, with a view to show that it is purely artificial, and tends to disappear with the growth of wealth and population. This leads to the discussion of the relations of man to his fellow-men, which are shown to tend to the establishment of equality ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... alluded to, who carried on the expeditions here mentioned. They were one branch of the posterity of Ham; who is here spoken of as the eldest son of Cronus. How justly they conferred upon him this rank of primogeniture, I will not determine. By [786]Cronus we are here to understand the same person, as is also represented under the name of Soues. This would be more truly expressed [Greek: Soon], Sooen; by which is meant the Sun: All the Amonian families affected to be styled Heliadae, or the offspring of the ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... as well as the city householders will be admitted to the franchise, which, under the elective system, is at once the only guarantee for justice to him and for his loyalty to the State. And when the country householder has the suffrage there will soon be an end of those laws of primogeniture and entail, which are deemed so Conservative, but are in fact most revolutionary, since they divorce the nation from its own soil. And then there will be a happier and a more United England in country as well as in town: the poor law, the hateful, degrading, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... intoxicated with the blacksmith of the place;" related to Cardinal Fleury, he is made the first Duc de Fleury.-Everything contributes to this decay, the law, habits and customs, and, above all, the right of primogeniture. Instituted for the purpose of maintaining undivided sovereignty and patronage it ruins the nobles since sovereignty and patronage have no material to work on. "In Brittany," says Chateaubriand, "the elder sons of the nobles swept away two-thirds of the property, while the younger sons ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... The law of primogeniture having ceased to exist, estates became subject to division and subdivision, until the growing families of the original proprietors found themselves unable to continue planters with any prospect of advantage. In such cases the property was sold, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... had no reverence for anything or anybody. One day they were in Evadne's little sitting room which overlooked the courtyard. It was an antechamber to her bedroom, and peculiarly her own by right of primogeniture. Nobody ever thought of going there without her special permission—except, of course, the twins; but even they assumed hypocritical airs of innocent apology for accidental intrusion when they wanted to make things pleasant ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of late found it necessary in a great measure to discard, he dispatched these ministers to Colombia, Buenos Ayres, and Chili without exacting from those Republics, as by the ancient principles of political primogeniture he might have done, that the compliment of a plenipotentiary mission should have been paid first by them to the United States. The instructions, prepared under his direction, to Mr. Anderson, the first of our ministers to the southern continent, ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... Calvinism was favoured by a prince, but in general the house was loyal to the doctrines of Luther. The growth of Prussia provided Anhalt with a formidable neighbour, and the establishment and practice of primogeniture by all branches of the family prevented further divisions of the principality. In 1806 Alexius of Anhalt-Bernburg was created a duke by the emperor Francis II., and after the dissolution of the Empire each of the three princes took this title. Joining the Confederation of the Rhine in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... is generally a low rambling attic, occupied by servants, and sometimes by the chaplain, the librarian and the steward, in better rooms. When there were more than two married sons, which hardly ever happened under the old system of primogeniture, they divided the apartments between them as best they could. The unmarried younger children had to put up with what was left. Moreover, in the greatest houses, where there was usually a cardinal ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... who had made himself a name, or was in any way distinguished above the remainder. In the absence of any personal ground of preference, Orodes—who seems to have regarded himself as possessing a right to nominate the son who should succeed him—thought the claims of primogeniture deserved to be considered, and selected as his successor, Phraa-tes, the eldest of the thirty. Not content with nominating him, or perhaps doubtful whether the nomination would be accepted by the Megistanes, he proceeded further to abdicate ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... Moses began to moralize about the corrupt morals of the Italian race, and went on to speak of tyranny, priestcraft, slavery, aristocracy, monarchy, primogeniture, brigandage, and ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille
... masculine fiefs of the empire. Spain became guarantee of the Austrian succession, according to the pragmatic sanction, by which the dominions of that house were settled on the emperors's heirs general, and declared to be a perpetual, indivisible, and inseparable feoffment of the primogeniture. By the commercial treaty of Vienna, the Austrian subjects were entitled to advantages in trade with Spain, which no other nation enjoyed. His catholic majesty guaranteed the Ostend East India company; and agreed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... with this relation of his father's mysterious fate. His dark auburn hair, in short ringlets parted in the middle, gave his sunburnt countenance a likeness to some of the old gentle families with which he was allied, his father having been a son of younger sons, in a date when primogeniture prevailed in all this bay region; and therefore, possessing nothing, he went into the war against England as a sailor, and his family influence obtained for him command of the new privateer launched on the Manokin, the Ida, which set sail with ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... interest and broad acres, in his view, were the only solid foundation on which the government of the nation could possibly be based. He asked, how was it possible to resist the attack on the Irish Church and the Irish Union after the surrender of the Corn Laws? He wanted to know how primogeniture, the Bishops, the House of Lords, and the Crown itself were to be maintained, now that the leader of the Conservative party had truckled to the League. Sir Robert Peel, he added, had imperilled these institutions of the country more than Cobbett or O'Connell; he ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... have not painted the picture as I intended. Plantagenet Palliser I think to be a very noble gentleman,—such a one as justifies to the nation the seeming anomaly of an hereditary peerage and of primogeniture. His wife is in all respects very inferior to him; but she, too, has, or has been intended to have, beneath the thin stratum of her follies a basis of good principle, which enabled her to live down ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... soonest defeated of any part. The brain will hold out longer than it, and the liver longer than that; they will endure a siege; but an unnatural heat, a rebellious heat, will blow up the heart, like a mine, in a minute. But howsoever, since the heart hath the birthright and primogeniture, and that it is nature's eldest son in us, the part which is first born to life in man, and that the other parts, as younger brethren, and servants in his family, have a dependance upon it, it is reason that the principal care be had of it, though it be not the strongest part, as the eldest ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... which Maine deals—the place of custom, code, and fiction in the development of early law, the affiliation of international Law to the Jus Gentium and the Law of Nature, the origins of feudalism and of primogeniture, the early history of delict and crime, and that most remarkable and profound passage in which Maine shows the heavy debt of the various sciences to Roman law and the influence which it has exerted on the vocabulary of political science, the concepts ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... rather than family interest—a form of monarchy which the Chinese call elective, but which has never been followed, save that the Emperor exercises the right of choice among his sons irrespective of primogeniture. The man who bears the odium of having departed from the unselfish policy of Yao and Shun is this same Ta-yue. He left the throne to his son and, as the Chinese say, "made of the ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... whom the 18th Brumaire gave birth Bonaparte speedily declared himself the eldest, and hastened to assume all the rights of primogeniture. He soon arrogated to himself the whole power. The project he had formed, when he favoured the revolution of the 18th Fructidor, was now about to be realized. It was then an indispensable part of his plan that the Directory should violate the constitution in order to ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... say...Your notion of the Aristocrat being kenspeckle, and the best men of a good lot being thus easily selected is new to me, and striking. The 'Origin' having made you in fact a jolly old Tory, made us all laugh heartily. I have sometimes speculated on this subject; primogeniture (My father had a strong feeling as to the injustice of primogeniture, and in a similar spirit was often indignant over the unfair wills that appear from time to time. He would declare energetically that if he were law-giver no will should be valid that ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... dwelling in some other city, where the visiting cards will bear wholly different names. How idle to attempt to transport into American life the social traditions and delusions which require monarchy and primogeniture, and a standing army, to keep them up—and which cannot always hold their own in England, even ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Sermon; Ribbons and Coronets at Market Rates; The Spinning of Literature; Growth of American Taste for Art; The Wills of the Triumvirate; The Duel and the Newspapers; The Industry of Interviewers; Talk about Novels; Primogeniture and Public Bequests; The Times and the Customs; Victor Hugo; Evolutionary Hints for Novelists; The Travellers; Swindlers and Dupes; ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... the first-born, Bernard's brother, the darling child of his father and mother, the glorious hope of the nail-maker's family. Slaves, like so many others in the Midi, to the superstition of the rights of primogeniture, they had made every possible sacrifice to send to Paris their fine, ambitious lad, who set out assured of success, the admiration of all the young women of the town; and Paris, after having for six years, beaten, twisted, and squeezed in its great vat the brilliant southern stripling, ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... clause providing for equal division of the property of people dying intestate. This first legislation of the National Government on the subject of real property dealt a death-blow to primogeniture, and to the last of the inherited feudal customs of the Middle Ages. It prevented the accumulation of large estates, and insured the individual ownership of thousands of homes. No system of foreign landlordism was possible under it. The people ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... Oldness. — N. oldness &c. adj[obs3].; age, antiquity; cobwebs of antiquity. maturity; decline, decay; senility &c. 128. seniority, eldership, primogeniture. archaism &c. (the past) 122; thing of the past, relic of the past; megatherium[obs3]; Sanskrit. tradition, prescription, custom, immemorial usage, common law. V. be old &c. adj.; have had its day, have seen its day; become old &c. adj.; age, fade, senesce. Adj. old, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... &c adj.^; age, antiquity; cobwebs of antiquity. maturity; decline, decay; senility &c 128. seniority, eldership, primogeniture. archaism &c (the past) 122; thing of the past, relic of the past; megatherium^; Sanskrit. tradition, prescription, custom, immemorial usage, common law. V. be old &c adj.; have had its day, have seen its day; become old &c adj.; age, fade, senesce. Adj. old, ancient, antique; of long standing, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... but she did not want that Harry should quarrel with his aunt for her sake, or that Madame de Bernstein should be angry with her. Harry was not the Lord of Virginia yet: he was only the Prince, and the Queen might marry and have other Princes, and the laws of primogeniture might not be established in Virginia, qu'en savait elle? My lord her brother and she had exchanged no words at all about the delicate business. But they understood each other, and the Earl had a way of understanding things without ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... oldest, Bernard's brother, the cherished darling of the Jansoulets, father and mother, the hope and the glory of the family of the junk-dealer, who, faithful like so many more in the South to the superstition concerning the right of primogeniture, had made every conceivable sacrifice to send that handsome, ambitious youth to Paris; and he had started with four or five marshals' batons in his trunk, the admiration of all the girls in the village; but Paris—after it had beaten and twisted and squeezed that ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... with the future of the family. To which of them will the inheritance of the old nest revert? As sisters, they have equal rights to it: so our code would decide, since the day when it shook itself free of the old savage right of primogeniture. But the Mason-bees have not yet got beyond the primitive basis of property, the right of ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... families as the Quincys, the Lowells, the Winthrops, and the Adamses, which have maintained their superior position for generations, through sheer force of ability and character, without the external buttresses of primogeniture and entail, may safely measure itself against the stained lineage of many European families of high title. The very absence of titular distinction often causes the lines to be more clearly drawn; as ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... she was called a witch, and people, even those who affected to ignore the craft of wizardry, were content to keep away from her. When the Revolution ended, Southward Howland demanded Dame Crewe's house and acre, claiming under law of entail, though primogeniture had been little enforced in America, where there was room and to spare for all. But Howland was stubborn and the woman's house had good situation, so one day he rode to her door and summoned her with a tap of ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... the sun. The tiled-roofs, with their towers and slopes, looked like those in pictures of palace buildings. It was a group,—a pile; under these roofs a family of five—Americans, republicans, with no law of primogeniture to conserve the estate beyond a single lifetime—were to live like a little royal household. And the father had made all his money in fifteen years in Opal Street. This country of ours, and the ways of it, are certainly pretty nearly the queerest under ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... community (so far, at least, as the western branch of the race is concerned) everywhere presents to us the threefold element of King, Lords, and Commons. The King is supreme, he reigns by right of birth (though not according to strict primogeniture), and he not only reigns but governs. Theoretically he is absolute, but practically can do little without taking counsel with his Lords, the aristocracy of the tribe, originally an aristocracy of birth, but constantly tending to become one of wealth. The Commons gather to ratify ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... its exhumation. I entreat him likewise to forward my certificate of baptism, the seal with the armorial bearings of my family, and a legal certificate of my birth to the French ambassador in Venice, who will send the whole to the duke, my father, my rights of primogeniture belonging, after my demise, to the prince, my brother. In faith of which I have signed and sealed these presents: Francois VI. Charles Philippe Louis Foucaud, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... census every ten years, the more satisfactory conduct of parliamentary elections and the prevention of corruption, better facilities for the administration of justice in the two provinces, the abolition of primogeniture with respect to real estate in Upper Canada, and the more equitable division of property among the children of an intestate, based on the civil law of French Canada ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... barbarians, to govern them. We are revenging ourselves on the Gauls.'" Significant words, which will one day throw light upon the depths of the Italian nature, the eldest daughter of modern civilization, imbued with her right of primogeniture, persisting in her grudge against the transalpines, the rancorous inheritor of Roman ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... son, "that if we follow our heredity back far enough, ours is an elected monarchy. And if once you admit election you must admit also the right of the to-be-elected one to offer or refuse his candidature. The nation cannot play fast and loose, as it has done, with the principle of male primogeniture, and at the same time impose upon us, its candidates for election, an unavoidable obligation to accept the burden of heredity. No; let us have the matter quite clear. If the people—as they have done by others in the past—claim the right to reject me, ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... double measure of the disadvantages of poverty,—a joyless childhood, a guideless youth, and perhaps a mateless manhood, his own life being drained to feed the young of his father's begetting. If we cannot do away with poverty entirely, we ought at least to abolish the institution of primogeniture. Nature invented the individual, and promised him, as a reward for lusty being, comfort and immortality. Comes man with his patented brains and copyrighted notions, and levies a tax on the individual, in the form of enforced cooeperation, for the maintenance of his pet institution, the ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... and State are severed, primogeniture will follow; then he will get a slice of the estate of the ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... secured by the peculiar land tenure of the East. The king and the proprietors granted land for small sums on feudal terms. The grantees in their turn settled these holdings in fee tail on the oldest son in accordance with the law of primogeniture. This produced a class described by Jefferson who said: "There were then aristocrats, half-breeds, pretenders, a solid independent yeomanry, looking askance at those above, yet not venturing to jostle them, and last and lowest, a seculum of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... children in these days, who, dead to all natural affection, and every sentiment but avarice, seize all that the law will grant, whether equity will sanction it or not. Disregarding this claim of primogeniture, he insisted that the whole inheritance should be parceled into equal shares, of which he accepted only his own. But the generous impulses of his noble nature, were not limited to the domestic circle. His heart was warm with ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... sixty-two are reckoned to the same extent of country. But in Massachusetts estates are very rarely divided; the eldest son takes the land, and the others go to seek their fortune in the desert. The law has abolished the rights of primogeniture, but circumstances have concurred to re-establish it under a form of which none can complain, and by which ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... true-blooded blue nose. His father had a noble farm of rich intervale on the banks of the river Saint John, and was well to do in the world. Lank was his eldest son, yet no heritage was his, save his axe and the arm which swung it. The law of primogeniture exists not in this country, and the youngest son is frequently heir to that land on which the older ones have borne the "heat and burthen of the day," and rendered valuable by their toil, until each chooses his own portion in the world, by taking unto himself a wife and a lot of ...
— Sketches And Tales Illustrative Of Life In The Backwoods Of New Brunswick • Mrs. F. Beavan
... to walk across to Abbotstoke and dine at the Grange; and Tom, who, reasoning from analogy, had sent on his black tie and agate studs, was so dismally disconcerted on finding that Norman treated his own going as a matter of course, that Richard, whose chief use of his right of primogeniture was to set himself aside, discovered that he was wanted at home, and that Tom would be much better at the Grange, offering, at the same time, to send Norman's dressing things ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... criminality on his part, and so allowed Lord Southminster to assume the air of injured innocence. The eldest son of the eldest brother, unjustly set aside by the scheming machinations of an unscrupulous cousin! Primogeniture, the ingrained English love for keeping up the dignity of a noble family, the prejudice in favour of the direct male line as against the female—all were astutely utilised in Lord Southminster's interest. But worst of all, it was I who had typewritten the will—I, a friend of Harold's, ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... excellence. These are James and Bridget Elia. They are older than myself by twelve, and ten, years; and neither of them seems disposed, in matters of advice and guidance, to waive any of the prerogatives which primogeniture confers. May they continue still in the same mind; and when they shall be seventy-five, and seventy-three, years old (I cannot spare them sooner), persist in treating me in my grand climacteric precisely as a stripling, or ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... are now in England several Land-Tenure-Reform-Associations, some of which would "expropriate" all land and vest the title in the state. The programme of the others embraces not only opposition to the right of primogeniture, to family fidei commissa and the assertion of the right of freedom of trade in land, and of a more democratic use of common lands, but also the appropriation by the state of the increase in the rent ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... far-sighted and salutary enterprise a monarch ever planned for the welfare of the people confided to him; and the Church ought to feel proud of the part she took in his councils. But the upper classes deserted him in heart and mind, just as they had already deserted him on the great question of the law of primogeniture,—the lasting honor of the only bold statesman the Restoration has produced, namely, the Comte de Peyronnet. To reconstitute the nation through the family; to take from the press its venomous action and confine it to its real usefulness; to recall ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... follow the origin and sequence of the democratic dogmas, that all men are equal; that speech and thought are free; that each generation is a law to itself only; that there shall be no endowments, no entails, no primogeniture; that the people are sovereign; that the people can do no wrong. The great mass of those who, of necessity, are interested in practical politics have no such antiquarian curiosity. They want to know what can ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... the history of France, we find that, through a period of 1200 years, there have been no more than 64 kings: upon an average, therefore, each king appears to have enjoyed a reign of nearly nineteen years. This vast difference in security is due to two great principles,—that of primogeniture as between son and son, and of hereditary succession as between a son and every other pretender. Well may we hail the principle of hereditary right as realizing the praise of Burke applied to chivalry, viz., that it is "the cheap defence of nations;" for the security ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... hectic flush came over his chalky countenance, whilst a sardonic smile played over his features. "You can speak low enough now. 'Tis a pity that primogeniture is so little regarded in his Majesty's vessels of war; but methinks that you are but little dutiful, seeing that I am some ten years your senior, and that I do not scorn to own you, though you are the son ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... of primogeniture has its origin in the principle here stated, the desire of perpetuating some one palpable and prominent ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... estate for his life," the squire said to his son John. "I don't think I have a right to leave it away from him. It never has been left away from the heir. But I'll tie it up so that he shan't cut a tree on it." John Vavasor perhaps thought that the old rule of primogeniture might under such circumstances have been judiciously abandoned—in this one instance, in his own favour. But he did not say so. Nor would he have said it had there been a chance of his doing so with success. He was a man from whom no very noble deed could be expected; but he was ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... it will be recollected that the laws of primogeniture were overthrown, and it was ordained that in future every man's property should be divided equally among his children at his death: there can be no doubt that considerations of justice and humanity were ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... fast passing away. The English-speaking race throughout the world no longer looks to the parent land for political guidance, for instance, where Britain once reigned supreme. What English- speaking community would now study her antiquated political devices, her throne, her church and state, her primogeniture and entail, her hereditary chamber, unequal representation, or lack of representation rather, except that they might surely learn how to avoid them! Over the day when all English-speaking people turned instinctively to my native land for political example "Ichabod" must be written. They now look ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... terrible calamities. The Khadras eat the flesh of animals and fish but not that of birds, and they do not drink country liquor. When an estate is to be partitioned the eldest son first takes a tenth of the whole in right of primogeniture and the remainder is then divided equally. The Khadras rank as an artisan caste ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... appointed Emperor, and in this capacity entrusted with the government of the French Republic. Secondly, that the title of Emperor and the imperial power be hereditary in his family, from male to male, in order of primogeniture. Thirdly and lastly, that in deciding as regards the organization of the constituted authorities upon the modifications required by the establishment of hereditary power—equality, liberty, and the rights of the people, be ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... "Borough English," and the reader will have already inferred from the report of the action that, wherever it prevailed, the youngest son claimed to succeed to his father's estate. It is therefore the antithesis of the right of primogeniture, whereby real estate falls to the eldest son. An old record given to print by the late Mr. Robert Dymond, F.S.A., exhibits in great detail the customs of the Manor of Braunton, in Devonshire, and among them is that of Borough English, ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... sharing landed property among all the sons tended to prevent the growth of Welsh unity. Socially it appears far more just and reasonable than the custom of primogeniture. It is with the growth of feudalism (already apparent in the Welsh laws of the tenth century) that its political dangers become evident. The essence of feudalism is the confusion of political power and landed property; the ruler is lord of the land, the landlord is ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... is equivalent to a declaration that they were freemen, for in the feudal ages none other were entitled to the forms of law; while the right of heirship apparently exempted them from the rule of primogeniture which prevailed among the Norman conquerors;—it is probable, however, that this exemption did not long hold good. In other respects the citizens of London continued to be governed by their own laws and usages, administered by their own magistrates ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... that is, all the laws that ever were passed by kings, lords, and commons, especially if they have been passed some twenty years, and he has had to administer them. The poor-law and the game-law, the impressment act, the law of primogeniture, the law of capital punishments; all kind of private acts for the inclosure of commons; turnpike acts, stamp acts, and acts of all sorts; he loves and venerates them all, for they are part and parcel of the statute law of England. As a matter of course, he hates most religiously all offenders ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... had two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob though the younger obtained the rights of primogeniture; he also procured his father's blessing by very unjustifiable means; and then repaired to Padan-aram to take a wife out of his own family. He married Leah and Rachel, and had twelve sons, who were called the twelve Patriarchs or fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel, their ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... sent me, and thinking it a very excellent abridged exposition of such subjects; I still could not understand what it had to do with the theory of laws for the division of property, or the expediency of the law of primogeniture, and the advantages of the distinctions of rank, to the societies where they exist. The question seems to me rather whether these remains of feudalism have or have ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... and down in it. Bishop Latimer will have him to have been a bishop, but to me that other calling would appear more congenial. The sect of Cainites is not yet extinct, who esteemed the first-born of Adam to be the most worthy, not only because of that privilege of primogeniture, but inasmuch as he was able to overcome and slay his younger brother. That was a wise saying of the famous Marquis Pescara to the Papal Legate, that it was impossible for men to serve Mars and Christ at the same time. Yet in time past the profession of arms was judged to be [Greek: kat exochaen] ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... who was simply waiting for a dukedom. Lord Egremont, a younger son of the Earl of Soho, controlled large amounts of railway stock, and it was said held a mortgage on the family castle. To prove to his father and mother that no law of primogeniture could disinherit him, appeared to George Eltham ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... with a little nod of satisfaction, and then tapped at the door of the room adjoining her own. It was Miss Sandal's room; and Miss Sandal, though only sixteen months older than Charlotte, exacted all the deference due to her by the right of primogeniture. ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... threads of evidence might have been woven into our argument. As, for example, the significant fact, that if we trace back our still existing law of primogeniture—if we consider it as displayed by Scottish clans, in which not only ownership but government devolved from the beginning on the eldest son of the eldest—if we look further back, and observe that the ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... Putney, than she would have been in London. She was at Nuncombe in weak circumstances, to a certain degree friendless; with none of the excitement of society around her, with no elder sons buzzing about her and filling her mind, if not her heart, with the glories of luxurious primogeniture. Hugh Stanbury certainly did not dream that any special elder son had as yet been so attracted as to have made a journey to Nuncombe Putney on Nora's behalf. But should he on this account,—because she would be, as ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... its essentials embedded by the early amendments into our Federal Constitution; from that of another, not alone the great Declaration, but the statutes securing for his own State religious freedom, and the abolition of primogeniture—the detested legacy of British ancestors. His sword returned to its scabbard with the achievement of the independence of the colonies, and the mission of Washington was yet but half accomplished. To garner up the fruits of successful revolution by ensuring stable government ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... thousands of acres of land, most of it unimproved, besides an interest in some small iron works, but he had been twice married and at his death left two broods of children to be provided for. George, a younger son—which implied a great deal in those days of entail and primogeniture—received the farm on the Rappahannock on which his father lived, amounting to two hundred and eighty acres, a share of the land lying on Deep Run, three lots in Frederick, a few negro slaves and a ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... the father of gods and men. Vatea (like Oannes in the Chaldean legend) was half man, half fish. "The Very Beginning" begat other children in the same manner, and some of these became departmental gods of ocean, noon-day, and so forth. Curiously enough, the Mangaians seem to be sticklers for primogeniture. Vatea, as the first-born son, originally had his domain next above that of his mother. But she was pained by the thought that his younger brothers each took a higher place than his; so she pushed his land up, and it is now next below the solid crust on which mortals live in Mangaia. ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... you may imagine, perhaps. My fortune does not come under the law of primogeniture. There is no fidei commissum. I can dispose of ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... unwittingly said to the mother of Rogero, although he was the youngest born, what a fine king he would make; and the mother, in consequence, tutored her son to expect the command of the country, although the law of the land in the royal family is the primogeniture system, extending, however, only to those sons who are born after the accession of the king to ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... pathos and keenness. To reach sublimity, however, that moment would have to epitomise ideals which we deeply respected. We should have to believe in the sanctity of canon law and in the divine right of primogeniture. That a woman may have been very unhappy or that a state may have been held together by personal allegiance does not raise the fate of either to the tragic plane, unless "laws that are not of to-day nor yesterday," aspirations native to the ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... my gold; I'll bury that and curse and soul will save From poverty and death. And if ye mock, I'll curse you with a patriarchal curse— With Isaac's curse! O ye, with voices like The voice of Jacob, but with Esau's hands, Invert the law of primogeniture! Myself, my care! What care I ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... us in France, an equitable law is constantly subdividing large properties? No. The law of primogeniture is in full vigour in the kingdom of the Pope, like every other abuse of the good old times. They provide for their younger sons as they can, and for their daughters as they please. It is not parental justice that ruins families. I have even ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... branches become stronger and greater, by nourishing the ambition of becoming more powerful, and inspiring more closely to the people an air less corrupt than that which pervades courts. Thus, whilst primogeniture gives power to the elder, the people confer popularity ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... entails and increasing the power of limited owners. The last and most important of these, the Settled Estates Act, passed in 1882, gives the tenant for life power to sell any portion of the estate except the family mansion, and thus thoroughly undermines the principle upon which primogeniture and entails are founded. Much land which has hitherto been so tied up that the limited owners were either unable or unwilling to develop it can now be sold and improved. New measures have been proposed to increase still further the power of limited owners and to make the sale and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various |
