agnatic

Updated: June 4, 2025

We, however, have determined to follow a straightforward and simple path, and, preferring the mother to all other persons with a statutory title, to give her the entire succession of her sons, without deduction in favour of any other persons except a brother or sister, whether by the same father as the deceased, or possessing rights of cognation only; so that, as we have preferred the mother to all with a statutory title, so we call to the inheritance, along with her, all brothers and sisters of the deceased, whether statutorily entitled or not: provided that, if the only surviving relatives of the deceased are sisters, agnatic or cognatic, and a mother, the latter shall have onehalf, and all the sisters together the other half of the inheritance; if a mother and a brother or brothers, with or without sisters agnatic or cognatic, the inheritance shall be divided among mother, brothers, and sisters in equal portions.

- The Institutes of Justinian

On the whole, Sir Henry Maine strongly clings to the belief that the gens commonly had 'a real core of agnatic consanguinity from the very first. But he justly recognises the principle of imitation, which induces men to copy any fashionable institution. Whatever the real origin of the gens, many gentes were probably copies based on the fiction of common ancestry.

Andrew Lang - Custom and Myth