on its eastern borders, and received many intrusive colonies of that race. There is evidence to show that junior right spread through the parts of Germany where it prevailed, owing to the migrations of the Slavs, or people of mixed Slavic and Teutonic descent. No instances of this custom occur in Scandinavia, and at the same time no instances can be adduced of Slav settlements in that peninsula. The custom of junior right is found in the early Russian code, by which the inheritance of the father appears to have passed to males in preference to females. and the youngest son was always to take the paternal house.
This early Russian code of laws, known as “The Rousskaia Pravdá of Yaroslav,” which is preserved in the Chronicle of Novgorod, shows that the early Slavs had much the same institutions, such as trial by ordeal and by wager of battle, compensations for injuries, etc., as prevailed among other European nations at the same time.[1] Primogeniture is alien to the Spirit of Slavonic institutions.[2] It was first introduced into Russian law by Peter the Great, but, having been found unworkable, was abolished by the Empress Anne. It was so far restored by the Emperor Nicholas in 1830 that a father was then allowed to make his eldest son his heir if he chose to do so.[3] The Slavs are essentially agriculturists, and the tendency of the race is in the direction of co-operation. The primary element of organization in Russia—the village community, or mir,[4] under which the youngest son has a preference—is a survival of the old tenure of village communities that at one time must have been widely prevalent in Europe. When first we meet with the Slavs in history, we find them living in communities. Having all these facts in mind, we may reasonably look eastward of Germany for the origin of the custom by which the
