Family, Law, and Inheritance in America - A Social and Legal History of Nineteenth-Century Kentucky (Hardcover, New)

Yvonne Pitts explores inheritance practices by focusing on nineteenth-century testamentary capacity trials in Kentucky in which disinherited family members challenged relatives' wills. These disappointed heirs claimed that their departed relative lacked the capacity required to write a valid will. These inheritance disputes crisscrossed a variety of legal and cultural terrains, including ordinary people's understandings of what constituted insanity and justice, medical experts' attempts to infuse law with science, and the independence claims of women. Pitts uncovers the contradictions in the body of law that explicitly protected free will while simultaneously reinforcing the primacy of blood in mediating claims to inherited property. By anchoring the study in local communities and the texts of elite jurists, Pitts demonstrates that capacity was a term laden with legal meaning and competing communal values about family, race relations, and rationality. These concepts evolved as Kentucky's legal culture mutated as the state transitioned from a conflicted border state with slaves to a developing free-labor, industrializing economy.

General

Imprint:	Cambridge UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Cambridge Historical Studies in American Law and Society
Release date:	May 2013
First published:	May 2013
Authors:	Yvonne Pitts
Dimensions:	235 x 157 x 18mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	213
Edition:	New
ISBN-13:	978-1-107-03550-8
Categories:	Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Books > Humanities > History > American history > General Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history Books > Law > Laws of other jurisdictions & general law > Private, property, family law > Personal property law > Wills & probate Books > History > American history > General Books > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900
LSN:	1-107-03550-3
Barcode:	9781107035508

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