There is a peculiar plot found in many Eurasian fairytales: Brothers (mostly three) have to complete a task (like kill a dragon), which will get them a princess and a throne...And all the brothers fail, except the youngest, who gets both the girl and the throne...
Russian: Tsarevitch Ivan, the Firebird and the Gray Wolf
Serbian: The Nine Peahens and the Golden Apples
German: The Queen Bee
Iranian: Simorgh
One interpretation of this fairytale plot is that it describes Ultimogeniture, the inheritance practice in which all the family land and the family house is inherited by the youngest son...
The fact that this plot is found in stories from Europe to Central Asia is very interesting, because in most parts of Eurasia in the past it was the oldest son who inherited all the property or the property was split equally between all the sons...
There were some exception to this rule though:
1. Slavs
Ultimogeniture was particularly prevalent in Russia, where it was enshrined in law in The Pravda Russkaya, or Yaroslav’s Law, written ca. 1017 AD by Yaroslav the Wise...You can read it here...
Ultimogeniture was recorded in the 18th and 19th century in many Slavic countries like Russia, Poland, Serbia... You can find some data about in in "Between Traditional Collectivity and Modern Individuality: An Atomistic Perspective on Family and Household astride the Hajnal Line (Upper Silesia and Great Poland at the End of the 18th Century)" and "Social Behaviour and Family Strategies in the Balkans (16th – 20th Centuries)"...
2. Mongols
Among Mongols, Ultimogeniture (the inheritance by the youngest son) was practiced in combination with Primogeniture (the inheritance by the oldest son) and several other inheritance rules. Which caused chaos...You can read about it in "Remnants of the Mongol imperial tradition"...
3. "Some people" from England, Eastern Germany, Denmark, Austria
Ultimogeniture was also practiced in certain parts of England where it was called "Borough-English" and was by the Normans called “the custom of the English towns”...And in some parts of Eastern Germany, Denmark and Austria...
Now this is interesting. The origin of the Ultimogeniture in England, Germany, Austria and Denmark is unknown...
Thomas William Shore, in his 1906 book "Origin of the Anglo–Saxon race" attributed this custom "to the West Slavic tribes which were part of Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain" and "to the West Slavic tribes who once lived in Germany, Austria and Denmark"
Some have argued that this custom was brought to Europe by the Steppe nomads, like the Huns, Mongols and Turks...
But I couldn't find any mention of Ultimogeniture being practiced by the Huns or Turks who both practiced Primogeniture. And as I said, Mongols had several different conflicting inheritance rules which leads me to believe that they adopted Ultimogeniture from someone else...
Who? Well maybe the stuff I talked about in this post about the Iron Age nomadic societies of the Northern Chines borderlands can give us a clue...
But I think that Ultimogeniture originated not in Iron Age Eurasian steppe societies, but in much earlier, Bronze Age Indo-European steppes societies...
Why do I think so? Because we find Ultimogeniture at the core of the Ancient Greek myths...
There, Uranus gets overthrown by his youngest son Cronus. Only to be overthrown by his youngest son Zeus.
Yet the Greeks, like everyone else around them, practiced Primogeniture...So what's going on here?
I believe that this practice probably comes from the times of the expansions. When elder sons were sent away to "carve their own piece of land for themselves" and the youngest was left at home to take care of the parents and the ancestral lands...
Why this was practiced by some settled peoples like Slavs is not easy to explain...
Interestingly David, the youngest of 8 sons, becomes the king of Jews...Joseph of Genesis also the youngest son and favoured...And Isaac...
But just like Greeks, Jews practiced Primogeniture...
I wonder what's going on here...
