A History of Inheritance

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So wealthy landowners and pastoralists who were concerned about pass on their fixed assets down the generations. So in order to preserve those inherited class privileges and lineage purity, people made sure that women only produced with group members. The stronger the reliance on kinship purity, kinship co operation, lineage purity, as well as the greater concern for purity, which was shaped by religions and culture, then the stricter the surveillance. That's partly why we see this heterogeneity. Because it was in eurasia where we had the plough, where we had serial cultivation.

Around the world and for most of history, human societies have been dominated by men. Why? Professor and author of the forthcoming “The Great Gender Divergence”, Dr. Alice Evans, joins Adam to explain how male governance springs from systems of inheritance, why matrilineal systems tend to convert to patrilineal ones, and why we’re seeing progress on gender equality around the world. You can follow Alice's work on Twitter at @_alice_evans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.