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Back to article: SUCCESSION (Lat. successio, from succedere, to follow after)

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SUCCESSION (Lat. successio, from succedere, to follow after) the act of succeeding or following, as of events, objects, places in a series, &c., but particularly, in law, the transmission or passing of rights from one to another.
In every system of law provision has to be made for a readjustment of things or goods on the death of the human beings who owned and enjoyed them. Succession to rights may be considered from two points of view: in some ways they depend on the personality of those who are concerned with them: if you hire a servant, you acquire a claim against a certain person and your claim will disappear on his death. But personal relations are commonly, implicated in the arrangement of property: if a person borrows money, the creditor expects to be paid even should the debtor die, and the actual payment will depend to a great extent on the rules as to inheritance. Succession, in the sense of the partition or redistribution of the property of a former owner is, in modern systems of law, the subject of many rules. Such rules may be based on the will of a de-ceased person. They will be found in such articles as ADMINIS-
TRATION; ASSETS; EXECUTORS AND ADMINISTRATORS; INHERITANCE; INTESTACY; LEGACY; WILL; &C. There are cases,
however, in which a will cannot be expressed; this eventuality is discussed in the present article, and there-can be no doubt that it is the most characteristic one from the point of view of social conditions. It represents the view of society at large as to what ought to be the normal course of succession in the readjustment of property after the death of a citizen. We shall dwell chiefly on the customs of succession among the nations of Aryan stock. Other customs are noticed in the articles on