The epiklerate reduced female heirs to procreative tools preserving patrilineal property

Evidence

One of the problems arising from societies based on agnation is the fate of inheritance in the absence of any male descendants. The Greeks had instituted the custom of epiklerate: the female heir had to marry her oldest relative in the paternal family (genos); thus the property her father bequeathed to her would be transmitted to children belonging to the same group, and the estate remained the property of the paternal genos; the epikleros was not a female heir but only a machine to procreate a male heir; this custom placed her entirely at man’s mercy as she was automatically handed over to the firstborn of her family’s men, who most often turned out to be an old man. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 189

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the epiklerate institution: a legal mechanism that made female ‘inheritance’ a device for producing a male heir rather than real succession.
• XREF: connects to: Sedentary agriculture gives motherhood sacred status because property demands heirs — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 161; The advent of private property converted woman from sacred being into owned property — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 167; Paternity was socially invented to give men immortality through heirs — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 186 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• In feudalism woman functioned as property transmitting land to men #corroborates (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 207