Thus ſons ſhall be admitted before daughters; or, as our male lawgivers have ſomewhat uncomplaiſantly expreſſed it, the worthieſt of blood ſhall be preferred[1]. As if John Stiles hath two ſons, Matthew and Gilbert, and two daughters, Margaret and Charlotte, and dies; firſt Matthew, and (in caſe of his death without iſſue) then Gilbert, ſhall be admitted to the ſucceſſion in preference to both the daughters.
This preference of males to females is entirely agreeable to the law of ſucceſſion among the Jews[2], and alſo among the ſtates of Greece, or at leaſt among the Athenians[3]; but was totally unknown to the laws of Rome[4], (ſuch of them, I mean, as are at preſent extant) wherein brethren and ſiſters were allowed to ſucceed to equal portions of the inheritance. I ſhall not here enter into the comparative merit of the Roman and the other conſtitutions in this particular, nor examine into the greater dignity of blood in the male or female ſex; but ſhall only obſerve, that our preſent preference of males to females ſeems to have ariſen entirely from the feodal law. For though our Britiſh anceſtors, the Welch, appear to have given a preference to males[5], yet our ſubſequent Daniſh predeceſſors ſeem to have made no diſtinction of ſexes, but to have admitted all the children at once to the inheritance[6]. But the feodal law of the Saxons on the continent (which was probably brought over hither, and firſt altered by the law of king Canute) gives an evident preference of the male to the female ſex. "Pater aut mater, defuncti, filio non filiae haereditatem relinquent..... Qui defunctus non filios ſed filias reliquerit, ad eas omnis haereditas pertineat[7]." It is poſſible therefore that this preference might be a branch of that imperfect ſyſtem of feuds, which obtained here before the conqueſt; eſpe-
