mothers of John Stiles, are each in the ſame degree of propinquity; in the third degree, the reſpective iſſues of Walter and Chriſtian Stiles, of Luke and Frances Kempe, of Herbert and Hannah Baker, and of James and Emma Thorpe, are (upon the extinction of the two inferior degrees) all equally entitled to call themſelves the next kindred of the whole blood to John Stiles. To which therefore of theſe anceſtors muſt we firſt reſort, in order to find out deſcendants to be preferably called to the inheritance? In anſwer to this, and to avoid the confuſion and uncertainty that muſt ariſe between the ſeveral ſtocks, wherein the purchaſing anceſtor may be fought for,
VII. The ſeventh and laſt rule or canon is, that in collateral inheritances the male ſtocks ſhall be preferred to the female; (that is, kindred derived from the blood of the male anceſtors ſhall be admitted before thoſe from the blood of the female) — unleſs where the lands have, in fact, deſcended from a female.
Thus the relations on the father's ſide are admitted in infinitum, before thoſe on the mother's ſide are admitted at all[1]; and the relations of the father's father, before thoſe of the father's mother; and ſo on. And in this the Engliſh law is not ſingular, but warranted by the examples of the Hebrew and Athenian laws, as ſtated by Selden[2], and Petit[3]; though among the Greeks, in the time of Heſiod[4], when a man died without wife or children, all his kindred (without any diſtinction) divided his eſtate among them. It is likewiſe warranted by the example of the Roman laws; wherein the agnati, or relations by the father, were preferred to the cognati, or relations by the mother, till the edict of the emperor Juſtinian[5] aboliſhed all diſtinction between them. It is alſo conformable to the cuſtomary law of Normandy[6], which indeed in moſt reſpects agrees with our law of inheritance.
