Fabrice Boudjaaba

Transmisión de bienes y estructura nuclear de los hogares. Las prácticas testamentarias en el sistema de herencia igualitario (Normandía, Siglos XVIII-XIX)

This article seeks to understand, through testamentary practices, the report of the Normans to property and estate transmission of heritage in the context of implementation of the Civil Code (1804). Analysis of wills and motivations show that families don’t seek to circumvent old practice of discrimination against girls (by using preciput in favor of boys, for example), but attest especially a concern for the preservation of conditions of life of the surviving spouse and more generally attention for the independence of the elderly. Under these conditions, the testamentary practices, respectful of the egalitarian principle, doesn’t show a clear attachment to a lineage concept of heritage, as evidenced by historians of law, or attachment to a peasant family land, but a model of life based on the nuclear family and the non-cohabitation of parents and married children in the same household.