Family, law, and inheritance in America : a social and legal history of nineteenth-century Kentucky / Yvonne Pitts, Purdue University.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pitts, Yvonne, author.

Series:

Cambridge historical studies in American law and society.

Cambridge historical studies in American law and society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Inheritance and succession--Kentucky--19th century.

Inheritance and succession.

Wills--Kentucky--19th century.

Wills.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 203 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Family, Law, & Inheritance in America

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Yvonne Pitts explores inheritance practices by focusing on nineteenth-century testamentary capacity trials in Kentucky in which disinherited family members challenged relatives' wills. These disappointed heirs claimed that their departed relative lacked the capacity required to write a valid will. These inheritance disputes criss-crossed a variety of legal and cultural terrains, including ordinary people's understandings of what constituted insanity and justice, medical experts' attempts to infuse law with science, and the independence claims of women. Pitts uncovers the contradictions in the body of law that explicitly protected free will while simultaneously reinforcing the primacy of blood in mediating claims to inherited property. By anchoring the study in local communities and the texts of elite jurists, Pitts demonstrates that 'capacity' was a term laden with legal meaning and competing communal values about family, race relations and rationality. These concepts evolved as Kentucky transitioned from a conflicted border state with slaves to a developing free-labor, industrializing economy.

Contents:

1. 'Parental justice': inheritance and obligation in families

2. 'My black family': manumissions and freedom in inheritance disputes

3. Arbiters of sanity: medical experts and jurists

4. Physical impairments and degenerate minds: the body as evidence

5. A special power: women's testamentary capacity.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 185-200) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-24176-6

1-139-88973-7

1-107-25127-3

1-139-56499-4

1-107-24795-0

1-107-25044-7

1-107-24878-7

1-107-24961-9

OCLC:

843079235