Clignet's analysis of inheritance patterns in modern America is
the fi rst sustained treatment of the subject by a sociologist.
Clignet shows that even today inheritance serves to perpetuate both
familial wealth and familial relations. He examines what leads
decedents to chose particular legal instruments (wills, trusts,
insurance policies, gifts "inter vivos") and how, in turn, the
instrument chosen helps explain the extent and the form of
inequalities in bequests, of a result of the gender or matrimonial
status of the beneficiaries.
The author's major is to identify and explain the most signifi
cant sources of variations in the amount and the direction of
transfers of wealth after death in the United States. He uses two
kinds of primary data: estate tax returns fi led by a sample of
male and female benefi ciaries to estates in 1920 and 1944,
representing two successive generations of estate transfers, and
publicly recorded legal instruments such as wills and trusts. In
addition, Clignet draws widely on secondary sources in the fi elds
of anthropology, economics, and history. His fi ndings reflect
substantive and methodological concerns. Th e analysis underlines
the need to rethink the sociology of generational bonds, as it is
informed by age and gender.
"Death, Deeds, and Descendants" underscores the variety of
forms of inequality that bequests take and highlights the
complexity of interrelations between the cultures of the decedents'
nationalities and issues like occupation and gender. Inheritance is
viewed as a way of illuminating the subtle tensions between
continuity and change in American society. This book is an
important contribution to the study of the relationship between
sociology of the family and sociology of social stratification.
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