Inheritance and relationships among family generations

Abstract

The study of the relations of parents and children through the angle of exchange economy enables to present a denied aspect of such relations and to perceive, at least partially, the ways that they are susceptible to configure themselves from one social space to another as well as from one period of time to another. We will successively discuss the relations among generations of families in which the transferring of inheritance is predominantly economic, followed by the cases in which the inheritance is predominantly cultural and, finally, the limit case (but trivial) in which there is an absence, or nearly an absence of any economic and cultural patrimony to be bequeathed. Therefore we can understand that the relations among family generations are neither eternally nor universally conflicted by nature, but are socially determined, variable from one social space to another as well as from one period of time to another.