Page:The Ancient City- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Greece and Rome.djvu/102

 96 THE FAMILY. BOOK H. ons logic, from the creed and religion that we have described aboA'e. The rule for the worship is, that it shall be trans- mitted from male to male ; the rule for the inheritance is, that it shall follow the worship. The daughter is not qualified to continue the paternal religion, since she may marry, and thus renounce the religion of her father to adopt that of her husband ; she has, there- fore, no right to the inheritance. If a father should happen to leave his property to a daughter, this prop- erty would be separated from the worship, which would be inadmissible. The daughter could not even fulfil the first duty of an heir, which was to continue the series of funeral repasts; since she would ofier the sacrifices to the ancestors of her husband. Religion forbade her, therefore, to inherit from her father. Such is the ancient principle; it influenced equally the legislators of the Hindus and those of Greece and Rome. The three peoples had the same laws; not that they had borrowed from each other, but because they had derived their laws from the same belief. " After the death of the father," says the Code of Manu, "let the brothers divide the patrimony among them;" and the legislator adds, that he recommends the brothers to endow their sisters, which proves that the latter have not of themselves any riglit to the paternal succession. This was the case, too, at Alliens. Demosthenes, in his orations, often has occasion to show that daugliters cannot inherit.' He is himself an example of the application of this rule; for he had a sister, and we ' Demosthenes, in Bosotum. Isa;us, X. 4. Lysias, in Man- tith., 10.