Abstract

The article studies the formation of legal notions of family property in rural Australia. The author argues that imported English notions of self-discipline and work were embodied in legal decisions that property should be inherited by sons who had worked on family farms rather than daughters or widows. These legal decisions were supported by domestic notions that women should be regarded as wives and mothers rather than inheritors of property. Legislation introduced to protect widows did not disturb the pattern of inheritance which continued to favour farming sons as against widows or daughters. In recent years there is an emerging pattern of equal inheritance.