wish (unless his parent was such himself), refusing (if a daughter under twenty-five years of age) a marriage and dowry proposed by her parent, and preferring a shameful life, neglecting to free a parent from captivity, neglecting him if insane, refusing the Catholic faith. If ingratitude is charged and established, the will is good: if it is not established, the appointment of heirs made in the will is null, and all the children share the inheritance equally (subject to bringing any marriage settlement into hotchpotch), but legacies, trusts, freedoms, and guardianships remain valid (subject of course to the Falcidian deduction).
Those who have no children are required to name their parents as heirs, unless on similar grounds (a reduced list is given) they can be justly omitted.
Having left to children (or parents) the due amount, a testator or testatrix can dispose of the residue at his or her pleasure, and a mother can even exclude the father from any management of the property left to the son, and, if the son is under age, appoint another manager. Justinian further enacted that none but orthodox should take any part of an inheritance, and that, if all entitled under a will or on intestacy were heterodox, in the case of clerics the Church, in the case of laymen the Crown, should inherit.
Members of a town council (decuriones) had since 535 been obliged if without any children, to leave three-fourths of their estate to the council: if they had children, legitimate or illegitimate, three-fourths or the whole according to circumstances were to go to such of them as were or became members or wives of members of the council. The law imposing disability for ingratitude applied here also.
A patron, if passed over in his freedman's will, could claim a third (free from legacies and trusts) if there were no children except such as were justly disinherited.
Succession to an intestate. In default of a will duly made and duly accepted by the heirs named or one of them the law provided heirs. The statutable heirs were testator's lawful children (sui heredes), and failing these (in old times), his agnates, failing these, the clan (gens). Gradually by the praetor's action cognates were also admitted, emancipated children and women other than sisters were no longer excluded, other disabilities were removed, and mother and children obtained by statute reciprocal rights of inheritance. The husband or wife claimed only after all blood-relations. This system is found in the Digest, Code, and Institutes. But in 543 and 548 Justinian superseded this system with its multifarious technicalities and ambiguities, and established (but for the orthodox only) a simpler order of succession, which is the more interesting because it largely supplied the frame for the English Statute of Distributions for intestate personalty.
Justinian disregarded distinctions of sex, of inclusion in or emancipation from the family, of agnates and cognates, and allowed in certain
