Recently the concept of inheritance has become a theme in my life and this is not just because I am considering my own mortality (which I do every now and then). In thinking about 'inheritance' there are several meanings to that term: deriving from Late Latin inhereditare and entering English from Old French: there is its legal meaning of receiving property, possessions, titles, or even debts from the deceased; another meaning is biological: receiving some characteristics from ancestors through genetic transmission; it might also relate to culture, by behaving in a manner acquired through history, customs and status.
In contemplating its meaning as an anthropologist I started referring back to some old student notes - yes, perhaps sadly, I have kept all my student notes, even though much is out of date and, of course, these days material on the internet is so handy and contemporary. The supremo anthropologist on 'inheritance' back when I was studying at university was Jack Goody, who happened to be brought up in Welwyn and St Albans and attended St Albans School. He went on to study at St John's College, Cambridge but his academic career got interrupted by World War II. Serving in North Africa he was captured and spent three years in prisoner-of-war camps. When he returned to university at the end of the war he switched from reading English Literature to studying Archaeology and Anthropology – a consequence of his imprisonment? - and on graduating took up anthropological fieldwork in Africa. He went on to become a major authority both on comparative anthropology and the anthropology of inheritance.
Much of the anthropology of inheritance during Goody's day was focussed on the process, using the method of ethnography: the descriptive study of human societies: their customs, habits, etc.. What anthropology reveals, at a practical level, is that most cultures have the custom of patrilineal inheritance, where male children inherit possessions and status from their forefathers. There are a few societies that employ matrilineal succession where property is passed along the female line. However, in accordance with patriarchal norms, the inheritors are usually the sister's sons. Only very rarely have anthropologists found the custom of matrilineal inheritance where daughters inherit from their mothers.
Of course, in most developed societies these days there is much more egalitarianism with regard to the dead passing down assets to offspring, with either gender inheriting, though preference may sometimes be given to the first-born (usually male). In literate societies, the inheritance practice of physical legacies tends to be governed by a 'will', a legal document, that controls and manages the distribution of assets and communicates the wishes of the deceased.
There is, however, also an emotional and psychological element to the concept of inheritance which relates to both an understanding of who we are as individuals – what is bequeathed to us in terms of our ancestry (anyone who has watched the TV programme, “Who Do You Think You Are?” will recall how moving that connection can be as tears well up as the subject learns of their family history) - and to the attachment, the living had with the deceased. Sadly, this is sometimes played out antagonistically over who has the right to the assets, the wishes and status of the dead person – which at one level is about fairness but can be interpreted as a conscious, or often unconscious, recognition and demand for ownership and succession.
In some societies that ownership and possession go beyond symbolism when there is anthropophagy (eating) of the dead (a form of endocannibalism) in order to inherit the power and qualities of the ancestor; the Yanomami of the Amazon eat the flesh or ashes of a deceased tribal member. They believe that by ingesting the dead they are maintaining the deceased person's spirit for the future.
If we think of what makes us who we are in biological terms, ' inheritance' relates to a living organism passing on traits and characteristics to offspring. A key to evolutionary success is genetic adaptation passing on qualities that ensure the survival of the species: competition to survive through natural selection is based on those differences within a species caused by inheritance and mutations which best adapt to the environment. We have all inherited genes that have proved successful in maintaining homo sapiens. As Richard Dawkins popularised in his book, The Selfish Gene, back in 1976 there is the theory that a gene will spread for the benefit of the gene itself and not the benefit of the individual, so our personal survival is not material.
Advances in genetics and our understanding of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) not only explains observable physical similarities but have revealed other traits that can be inherited, sometimes negatively: for example, health problems can be passed on through abnormalities in the genome – defects and deviances that can lead to a predilection for certain diseases and illnesses. Furthermore, through the science of epigenetics – the study of how behaviour and environment can cause changes that affect the way genes work - there is an increasing focus to understand what factors like diet, obesity, smoking, drinking have an impact on the 'expression' of genes and how this might constitute epigenetic inheritance.
Back in October the headteacher, Katharine Birbalsingh made a controversial statement that reopened an old Christian theological debate about original sin – that is sin is inherited by the newborn from their parents and can be traced back to Adam and Eve's Fall from the Garden of Eden. Birbalsingh argued that children are born with original sin and must be “habituated into choosing good over evil”. Her statement caused a storm of protest but it put me in mind of William Golding's Lord of the Flies, where a group of young schoolboys become stranded on a desert island and their attempts to govern themselves end up with them being irrational, uncivilised and barbaric. The point being that their innate behaviour was morally bad.
My final thought on inheritance is a trailer for an event. Before we were all subjected to the crisis of Covid I had proposed to St Albans Cathedral that I should organise a re-enactment of the debate between the Church Fathers, Pelagius and St Augustine of Hippo, which raged over original sin. Pelagius was a British monk and theologian who believed that if a person lived a moral life they had a human ability to attain salvation. St Augustine argued against Pelagius view as he thought the idea of humans saving themselves without divine intervention undermined the 'Grace of God' (as demonstrated by God saving sinners). St Augustine's position was that we are all born sinful with the urge to behave badly and disobey God and only the Almighty can save us in a way too mysterious for humankind to understand. This concept of original sin was formalised by the Church and became part of its doctrine following the Councils of Trent in the 16th century. (For a fuller explanation of the argument about original sin see my blog on free will:
There is a St Albans dimension to this disagreement over the good or bad nature of humans.
In 429 Pope Celestine I sent St Germanus to Britain to combat an outbreak of Pelagianism. According to tradition St German, along with a colleague, successfully debated against the Pelagian heresy at St Albans.
I am hoping that next summer, Covid willing, the original debate between Pelagius and St Augustine can be re-enacted in a dramatic form in the Abbott's Kitchen over a glass of wine!
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