La sucesión del Derecho histórico guipuzcoano ¿preferencia de las mujeres sobre los varones? Inheritance in historical Gipuzkoan law: a preference for women over men?

Abstract

Traditional Gipuzkoan law regulated the inheritance of the home, ensuring its indivisibility and giving parents the freedom to choose which of their children was most capable of its proper administration. A preference for daughters was a generalised practice in the 16th century. The 1534 Law of Madrid (which explicitly prohibited endowing daughters with family property donated propter nupcias) led from the application of traditional contra legem law to the acceptance of male primogeniture as the only means of ensuring the necessary indivisibility of the family estate.