Death, Deeds, and Descendants: Inheritance in Modern America

Rémi Clignet

AldineTransaction, 1992 - Social Science - 236 pages

Clignet's analysis of inheritance patterns in modern America is the fi rst sustained treatment of the subject by a sociologist. Clignet shows that even today inheritance serves to perpetuate both familial wealth and familial relations. He examines what leads decedents to chose particular legal instruments (wills, trusts, insurance policies, gifts "inter vivos") and how, in turn, the instrument chosen helps explain the extent and the form of inequalities in bequests, of a result of the gender or matrimonial status of the beneficiaries.

The author's major is to identify and explain the most signifi cant sources of variations in the amount and the direction of transfers of wealth after death in the United States. He uses two kinds of primary data: estate tax returns fi led by a sample of male and female benefi ciaries to estates in 1920 and 1944, representing two successive generations of estate transfers, and publicly recorded legal instruments such as wills and trusts. In addition, Clignet draws widely on secondary sources in the fi elds of anthropology, economics, and history. His fi ndings reflect substantive and methodological concerns. Th e analysis underlines the need to rethink the sociology of generational bonds, as it is informed by age and gender.

"Death, Deeds, and Descendants" underscores the variety of forms of inequality that bequests take and highlights the complexity of interrelations between the cultures of the decedents' nationalities and issues like occupation and gender. Inheritance is viewed as a way of illuminating the subtle tensions between continuity and change in American society. This book is an important contribution to the study of the relationship between sociology of the family and sociology of social stratifi cation.

Contents

• Challenges of a Study of American Inheritance: 1
• The Views of the French Revolution Model: 10
• The American Historical Experience of Inheritance: 13
• Romantic Motives versus Rational Efficiency: 15
• Property and Inheritance: 20
• The Outline of the Book: 25
• Inheritance and Reproduction: 29
• The Historical Background of the Term: 30
• The Challenge: 32
• The Conscious or Unconscious Nature of Reproduction: 33
• What Endures?: 35
• The Evidence: 41
• Determinants of Reproduction: 44
• The Limits of the Notion of Reproduction: 53
• Summary and Conclusions: 57
• The Burden of Proof in the Study of Heirship: 59
• The Representativeness of Samples: 60
• The Choice of a Sample of Estate Tax Returns: 63
• The Overall Demographic and Socioeconomic Profile of the Sample: 71
• The Validity of the Data: 75
• Conclusions: 79
• On the Variety of American Wealth: 81
• On Patterns of Capital Formation: 83
• On the Distinct Forms of American Wealth: 90
• The Variability in the Composition of Estates in 1920 and 1944: 99
• An Overall Picture: 102
• The Diversity of the Composition of Estates: 104
• Conclusions: 120
• Testacy and the Limits of Free Wills: 123
• Death and Time: 124
• What Is Known about Testacy in the United States: 126
• The Role of Testacy in 1920 and 1944: 133
• Joint Property: 134
• The Role of Gifts Inter Vivos: 135
• The Incidence of Wills: 137
• Time Interval between Testacy and Death: 140
• The Incidence of Trusts: 142
• Testacy and the Control of Time: 143
• Instruments of Transfers as Instruments of Ordering Things and People: 144
• Conclusions: 153
• Bequests and Inequality between and within Families: 155
• The Testators Dilemmas: 156
• The Evidence: 165
• Determinants of Inequality: 169
• An Assessment of Inequalities among the 1920 and 1944 Decedents: 170
• The Variety of Forms of Inequality: 177
• Conclusions: 186
• Inheritance of Yesterday Inheritance of Today: 189
• The Overall View: 191
• Mechanical and Interpretive Forms of Inheritance: 193
• The Relativity of the Results: 203
• Policy Implications: 206
• Notes: 209
• References: 221
• Index: 232

About the author

Remi Clignet is professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Maryland. He is the author of Many Wives, Many Powers: Authority and Power in Polygynous Families, The Structure of Artistic Revolutions, Liberty and Equality in the Educational Process: A Comparative Sociology of Education, and Social Area Analysis of Douala and Yaounde. Jens Beckert is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, Germany. He is the author or editor of numerous books including Inherited Wealth, Beyond the Market, and International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology. Remi Clignet, Jens Beckert, Brooke Harrington

Bibliographic information

• Title: Death, Deeds, and Descendants: Inheritance in Modern America; Social institutions and social change / Social institutions and social change
• Author: Rémi Clignet
• Publisher: AldineTransaction, 1992
• ISBN: 0202303985, 9780202303987
• Length: 236 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Death & Dying; Social Science / Social Work