How inheritance reveals persistent inequalities between siblings

One of five siblings, Françoise (the people cited did not give their surnames) realized late in life that she and her sister had not been raised in a completely equal way with their three brothers. The turning point came when the inheritance came, after the death of their father. "The family home had to remain with a male heir , " says the 77-year-old former doctor. When it came to adult matters about family matters, my sister and I felt excluded from the decisions, and it was hurtful for us."

On paper, however, the laws are very clear when it comes to inheritance: since the Civil Code of 1804, children or their descendants have inherited their ascendants equally " without distinction of sex or primogeniture." The 2001 reform of inheritance law reinforced this promise of equality by granting the same inheritance rights to children born out of wedlock or unrecognized.

Yet, in reality, society is struggling to free itself from the ancestral mechanisms that establish a hierarchy between girls and boys, between women and men, between brothers and sisters. " When it comes to sharing inheritance, we see gender inequalities reappear, coupled with inequalities in birthright." notes Kevin Diter, lecturer in sociology at the University of Lille.

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