The Indivisibility of Land: A Microanalysis of the System of Inheritance in Nineteenth-Century Ontario

Abstract

Although they had recourse to both the perfectly partible and the perfectly impartible systems of inheritance, nineteenth-century Ontarion farmers commonly employed a unique English-Canadian variation on the perfectly impartible pattern. They devised their estates upon one, or occasionally two of their children, binding them to pay out of their inheritance or other resources the provisions for remaining survivors made in the will. The purpose of this system was to allow land rich and money poor agrarians to pass on their principal asset intact, and it reflects their belief that favorable man/land ratios were the essence of security and prosperity. At the same time, the system made the principal heir the instrument of the deceased parent's desire to treat all of his surviving dependents more or less equally in terms of the value of their inheritances. The system guaranteed that those who inherited land would acquire sufficient land to pursue time tested agricultural methods, but it promoted severe demographic and social dislocations.