Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/227

 Ch. 14. ons hall be admitted before daughters; or, as our male lawgivers have omewhat uncomplaiantly expreed it, the worthiet of blood hall be preferred. As if John Stiles hath two ons, Matthew and Gilbert, and two daughters, Margaret and Charlotte, and dies; firt Matthew, and (in cae of his death without iue) then Gilbert, hall be admitted to the ucceion in preference to both the daughters.

preference of males to females is entirely agreeable to the law of ucceion among the Jews, and alo among the tates of Greece, or at leat among the Athenians ; but was totally unknown to the laws of Rome , (uch of them, I mean, as are at preent extant) wherein brethren and iters were allowed to ucceed to equal portions of the inheritance. I hall not here enter into the comparative merit of the Roman and the other contitutions in this particular, nor examine into the greater dignity of blood in the male or female ex; but hall only oberve, that our preent preference of males to females eems to have arien entirely from the feodal law. For though our Britih ancetors, the Welch, appear to have given a preference to males, yet our ubequent Danih predeceors eem to have made no ditinction of exes, but to have admitted all the children at once to the inheritance. But the feodal law of the Saxons on the continent (which was probably brought over hither, and firt altered by the law of king Canute) gives an evident preference of the male to the female ex. "Pater aut mater, defuncti, filio non filiae haereditatem relinquent..... Qui defunctus non filios ed filias reliquerit, ad eas omnis haereditas pertineat ." It is poible therefore that this preference might be a branch of that imperfect ytem of feuds, which obtained here before the conquet; epe- Rh