If the law is made as it now stands respectable families in Aiken, Barnwell, Colleton, and Orangeburg will be denied the right to intermarry among people with whom they are now associated and identified. At least one hundred families would be affected to my knowledge. They have sent good soldiers to the Confederate Army, and are now landowners and taxpayers. Those men served creditably, and it would be unjust and disgraceful to embarrass them in this way. It is a scientific fact that there is not one full-blooded Caucasian on the floor of this convention. Every member has in him a certain mixture of ... colored blood. The pure-blooded white has needed and received a certain infusion of darker blood to give him readiness and purpose. It would be a cruel injustice and the source of endless litigation, of scandal, horror, feud, and bloodshed to undertake to annul or forbid marriage for a remote, perhaps obsolete trace of Negro blood. The doors would be open to scandal, malice, and greed; to statements on the witness stand that the father or grandfather or grandmother had said that A or B had Negro blood in their veins. Any man who is half a man would be ready to blow up half the world with dynamite to prevent or avenge attacks upon the honor of his mother in the legitimacy or purity of the blood of his father. [ 8 ] [ 21 ]


In 1865, Florida passed an act that both outlawed miscegenation and defined the amount of black ancestry needed to be legally defined as a "person of color". The act stated that "every person who shall have one-eighth or more of negro blood shall be deemed and held to be a person of color." (This was the equivalent of one great-grandparent.) Additionally, the act outlawed fornication, as well as the intermarrying of white females with men of color. However, the act permitted the continuation of marriages between white persons and persons of color that were established before the law was enacted. [ 22 ]


The one-drop rule was not made law until the early 20th century. This was decades after the Civil War,  emancipation , and the  Reconstruction era . It followed restoration of  white supremacy  in the South and the passage of  Jim Crow   racial segregation  laws. In the 20th century, it was also associated with the rise of  eugenics  and ideas of  racial purity . [ citation needed ]  From the late 1870s on, white  Democrats  regained political power in the former Confederate states and passed racial  segregation  laws controlling public facilities, and laws and constitutions from 1890 to 1910 to achieve disfranchisement of most blacks. Many poor whites were also disfranchised in these years, by changes to voter registration rules that worked against them, such as  literacy tests , longer residency requirements and  poll taxes .


The first challenges to such state laws were overruled by  Supreme Court  decisions which upheld state constitutions that effectively disfranchised many. White Democratic-dominated legislatures proceeded with passing  Jim Crow laws  that instituted racial segregation in public places and accommodations, and passed other restrictive voting legislation. In  Plessy v. Ferguson , the Supreme Court allowed racial segregation of public facilities, under the "separate but equal" doctrine.


Jim Crow laws reached their greatest influence during the decades from 1910 to 1930. Among them were  hypodescent laws , defining as black anyone with any black ancestry, or with a very small portion of black ancestry. [ 3 ]   Tennessee  adopted such a "one-drop" statute in 1910, and  Louisiana  soon followed. Then  Texas  and  Arkansas  in 1911,  Mississippi  in 1917,  North Carolina  in 1923,  Alabama  and  Georgia  in 1927, and  Virginia  in 1930. During this same period,  Florida ,  Indiana ,  Kentucky ,  Maryland ,  Missouri ,  Nebraska ,  North Dakota , and  Utah  retained their old "blood fraction" statutes  de jure , but amended these fractions (one-sixteenth, one-thirty-second) to be equivalent to one-drop  de facto . [ 23 ]


Before 1930, individuals of visible mixed European and African ancestry were usually classed as  mulatto , or sometimes as black and sometimes as white, depending on appearance. Previously, most states had limited trying to define ancestry before "the fourth degree" (great-great-grandparents). But, in 1930, due to lobbying by southern legislators, the Census Bureau stopped using the classification of mulatto. Documentation of the long social recognition of  mixed-race  people was lost, and they were classified only as black or white.


The binary world of the one-drop rule disregarded the self-identification both of people of mostly European ancestry who grew up in white communities, and of people who were of mixed race and identified as American Indian. In addition,  Walter Plecker , Registrar of Statistics, ordered application of the 1924 Virginia law in such a way that vital records were changed or destroyed, family members were split on opposite sides of the color line, and there were losses of the documented continuity of people who identified as American Indian, as all people in Virginia had to be classified as white or black. Over the centuries, many Indian tribes in Virginia had absorbed people of other ethnicities through marriage or adoption, but maintained their cultures. Suspecting blacks of trying to " pass " as Indians, Plecker ordered records changed to classify people only as black or white, and ordered offices to reclassify certain family surnames from Indian to black.


Since the late 20th century, Virginia has officially recognized eight American Indian tribes and their members; the tribes are trying to gain federal recognition. They have had difficulty because decades of birth, marriage, and death records were misclassified under Plecker's application of the law. No one was classified as Indian, although many individuals and families identified that way and were preserving their cultures.


In the case of mixed-race  American Indian  and European descendants, the one-drop rule in Virginia was extended only so far as those with more than one-sixteenth Indian blood. This was due to what was known as the " Pocahontas exception ". Since many influential  First Families of Virginia  (FFV) claimed descent from the American Indian  Pocahontas  and her husband  John Rolfe  of the colonial era, the  Virginia General Assembly  declared that an individual could be considered white if having no more than one-sixteenth Indian "blood" (the equivalent of one great-great-grandparent).


The  eugenist   Madison Grant  of New York wrote in his book,  The Passing of the Great Race  (1916): "The cross between a white man and an  Indian  is an Indian; the cross between a white man and a Negro is a Negro; the cross between a white man and a  Hindu  is a Hindu; and the cross between any of the three European races and a Jew is a Jew." [ 24 ]  As noted above, Native American tribes which had patrilineal descent and inheritance, such as the Omaha, classified children of white men and Native American women as white.


Through the 1940s,  Walter Plecker  of Virginia [ 25 ]  and  Naomi Drake  of  Louisiana [ 26 ]  had an outsized influence. As the Registrar of Statistics, Plecker insisted on labeling mixed-race families of European-African ancestry as black. In 1924, Plecker wrote, "Two races as materially divergent as the White and Negro, in morals, mental powers, and cultural fitness, cannot live in close contact without injury to the higher." In the 1930s and 1940s, Plecker directed offices under his authority to change vital records and reclassify certain families as black (or colored) (without notifying them) after Virginia established a binary system under its Racial Integrity Act of 1924. He also classified people as black who had formerly self-identified as Indian. When the United States Supreme Court struck down Virginia's law prohibiting inter-racial marriage in  Loving v. Virginia  (1967), it also declared Plecker's  Virginia Racial Integrity Act  and the one-drop rule unconstitutional.


Many people in the U.S., among various ethnic groups, continue to have their own concepts related to the one-drop idea. They may still consider those multiracial individuals with any African ancestry to be black, or at least non-white (if the person has other minority ancestry), unless the person explicitly identifies as white. [ citation needed ]  On the other hand, the  Black Power movement  and some leaders within the black community also claimed as black those persons with any visible African ancestry, in order to extend their political base and regardless of how those people self-identified. [ citation needed ]


Among the colonial slave societies, the United States was nearly unique in developing the one-drop rule; it derived both from the Southern slave culture (shared by other societies) and the aftermath of the  American Civil War ,  emancipation  of slaves, and  Reconstruction . In the late 19th century, Southern whites regained political power and restored  white supremacy , passing  Jim Crow laws  and establishing  racial segregation  by law. In the 20th century, during the Black Power movement, black race-based groups claimed all people of any African ancestry as black in a reverse way, to establish political power.


In colonial  Spanish America , many soldiers and explorers took  indigenous  women as wives. Native-born Spanish women were always a minority. The colonists developed an elaborate classification and  caste system  that identified the mixed-race descendants of blacks,  Amerindians , and whites by different names, related to appearance and known ancestry. Racial caste not only depended on ancestry or skin color, but also could be raised or lowered by the person's financial status or class.


The same racial culture shock has come to hundreds of thousands of dark-skinned immigrants to the United States from  Cuba ,  Colombia ,  Venezuela ,  Panama , and other Latin American nations. Although many are not considered black in their homelands, they have often been considered black in US society. According to  The Washington Post , their refusal to accept the United States' definition of black has left many feeling attacked from all directions. At times, white and black Americans might discriminate against them for their lighter or darker skin tones; African Americans might believe that  Afro-Latino  immigrants are denying their blackness. At the same time, the immigrants think  lighter-skinned Latinos  dominate  Spanish-language television  and media. A majority of  Latin Americans  possess some African or American Indian ancestry. Many of these immigrants feel it is difficult enough to accept a new language and culture without the additional burden of having to transform from white to black. Yvette Modestin, a dark-skinned native of Panama who worked in  Boston , said the situation was overwhelming: "There's not a day that I don't have to explain myself." [ 27 ]


Professor J. B. Bird has said that Latin America is not alone in rejecting the historical US notion that any visible African ancestry is enough to make one black:


In most countries of the Caribbean,  Colin Powell  would be described as a  Creole , reflecting his mixed heritage. In  Belize , he might further be described as a "High Creole", because of his extremely light complexion. [ 28 ]


People in many other countries have tended to treat race less rigidly, both in their self-identification and how they regard others. Unlike the United States, in Brazil, people tend to consider  phenotype  rather than  genotype . An european-looking person will be considered white, even if they have some degree of ancestry from other races. Brazil has a racial category "pardo" ( mestizo  or  mulatto ) specifically for people who, in terms of appearance, do not fully fit as white, nor fully as black.


According to an survey of the  Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistic , to define their own race, Brazilians take into account skin color (73.8%) and family origin (61.6%), as well as physical features (hair, mouth, nose), mentioned by 53.5%. For 24.9%, culture and tradition also play a role in classification, along with economic origin or social class (13.5%) and political or ideological choice (2.9%). 96% of those surveyed said they can identify their race, which debunks the myth that many people in Brazil do not recognize the concept of race. [ 30 ]


During the Spanish colonial period,  Puerto Rico  had laws such as the  Regla del Sacar  or  Gracias al Sacar,  by which a person of black ancestry could be considered legally white so long as the individual could prove that at least one person per generation in the last four generations had also been legally white. Thus persons of some black ancestry with known white lineage were classified as white, the opposite of the "one-drop rule" in the United States. [ 31 ]


Given the intense interest in ethnicity, genetic  genealogists  and other scientists have studied population groups.  Henry Louis Gates Jr.  publicized such genetic studies on his two series  African American Lives ,  shown on  PBS , in which the ancestry of prominent figures was explored. His experts discussed the results of autosomal DNA tests, in contrast to direct-line testing, which survey all the DNA that has been inherited from the parents of an individual. [ 17 ]  Autosomal tests focus on  SNPs . [ 17 ]


The specialists on Gates' program summarized the make-up of the United States population by the following:


In 2002,  Mark D. Shriver , a molecular  anthropologist  at Penn State University, published results of a study regarding the racial admixture of Americans who identified as white or black: [ 33 ]  Shriver surveyed a 3,000-person sample from 25 locations in the United States and tested subjects for autosomal genetic make-up:


Black people in the United States are more racially mixed than white people, reflecting historical experience here, including the close living and working conditions among the small populations of the early colonies, when indentured servants, both black and white, and slaves, married or formed unions. Mixed-race children of white mothers were born free, and many families of free people of color were started in those years. 80 percent of the free African-American families in the Upper South in the censuses of 1790 to 1810 can be traced as descendants of unions between white women and African men in colonial Virginia, not of slave women and white men. In the early colony, conditions were loose among the working class, who lived and worked closely together. After the  American Revolutionary War , their free mixed-race descendants migrated to the frontiers of nearby states along with other primarily European Virginia pioneers. [ 20 ]  The admixture also reflects later conditions under slavery, when white planters or their sons, or overseers, frequently raped African women. [ 34 ]  There were also freely chosen relationships among individuals of different or mixed races.


Shriver's 2002 survey found different current admixture rates by region, reflecting historic patterns of settlement and change, both in terms of populations who migrated and their descendants' unions. For example, he found that the black populations with the highest percentage of white ancestry lived in California and Seattle, Washington. These were both majority-white destinations during the  Great Migration  of 1940–1970 of African Americans from the Deep South of Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. Blacks sampled in those two locations had more than 25% white European ancestry on average. [ 33 ]


As noted by Troy Duster, direct-line testing of the Y-chromosome and mtDNA ( mitochondrial DNA ) fails to pick up the heritage of many other ancestors. [ 15 ]  DNA testing has limitations and should not be depended on by individuals to answer all questions about heritage. [ 15 ]  Duster said that neither Shriver's research nor Gates' PBS program adequately acknowledged the limitations of  genetic testing . [ 15 ] [ 35 ]


Similarly, the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB) notes that: "Native American markers" are not found solely among Native Americans. While they occur more frequently among Native Americans, they are also found in people in other parts of the world. [ 36 ]  Genetic testing has shown three major waves of ancient migration from Asia among Native Americans but cannot distinguish further among most of the various tribes in the Americas. Some critics of testing believe that more markers will be identified as more Native Americans of various tribes are tested, as they believe that the early epidemics due to  smallpox  and other diseases may have altered genetic representation. [ 15 ] [ 35 ]


Much effort has been made to discover the ways in which the one-drop rule continues to be socially perpetuated today. For example, in her interview of black/white adults in the South, Nikki Khanna uncovers that one way the one-drop rule is perpetuated is through the mechanism of reflected appraisal. Most respondents identified as black, explaining that this is because both black and white people see them as black as well. [ 37 ]


Charles W. Chesnutt , who was of mixed race and grew up in the North, wrote stories and novels about the issues of mixed-race people in southern society in the aftermath of the Civil War.


The one-drop rule and its consequences have been the subject of numerous works of popular culture. The American  musical   Show Boat  (1927) opens in 1887 on a Mississippi River boat, after the Reconstruction era and imposition of  racial segregation  and  Jim Crow  in the South. Steve, a white man married to a mixed-race woman who  passes  as white, is pursued by a Southern sheriff. He intends to arrest Steve and charge him with  miscegenation  for being married to a woman of partly black ancestry. Steve pricks his wife's finger and swallows some of her blood. When the sheriff arrives, Steve asks him whether he would consider a man to be white if he had "negro blood" in him. The sheriff replies that "one drop of Negro blood makes you a Negro in these parts". Steve tells the sheriff that he has "more than a drop of negro blood in me". After being assured by others that Steve is telling the truth, the sheriff leaves without arresting Steve. [ 38 ] [ 39 ]


One-place studies  are a branch of  family history  and/or  local history  with a focus on the entire population of a single road, village or community, not just a single, geographically dispersed family line.


In the course of a one-place study, a prime objective is to transcribe the registers of christenings, marriages and burials of the parish church so they can be restructured into family order in a database. This is then correlated with other archival records such as tax, land and testamentary documents, and published as a biographical index. When such a study is done scientifically as a precursor to academic analysis, it is known as  family reconstitution .


The term one-place study is sometimes also used for a microhistory of a single urban street and its residents, including the changes in land ownership, agricultural or commercial activities.


Unlike a  local history , which focuses on the past as described by residents, a one-place study can provide a statistical approach that reveals hidden relationships, particularly in homogeneous village communities where almost the entire population has inter-married over the centuries, and may even disprove local legends.


The world's first major one-place study is believed to have been an attempt started in Austria in 1920 by Konrad Brandner to chart a complete genealogy of the population of the Steiermark region.


After the Nazi takeover of Germany, the Nazi farming authority  Reichsnährstand  began a nationwide campaign in 1937 to document the "Aryan blood" of countryfolk by documenting the ancestry of every village in a  Dorfsippenbuch . 30 such books were published by 1940. Nazi schoolteachers led the copying of parish registers onto index cards, and boasted that 30,000  Heimat  histories would be written, but the Second World War brought this project to a halt.


Though genealogy in  Germany  was to take decades to shake off this evil association, some enthusiasts resumed work on the card indexes or typewritten lists left from before the war, and the first new one-place study, now renamed an  Ortssippenbuch , appeared in 1956. Later the term was changed yet again, to  de:Ortsfamilienbuch . More than 3,000 have appeared, with a trend away from print to electronic publication.


Untainted by Nazi associations, a French demographer,  Louis Henry  (1911–1991), was developing methods in France to survey historic populations. His 1956 book co-written with  Michel Fleury ,  Des registres paroissiaux à l'histoire de la population. Manuel de dépouillement et d'exploitation de l'état civil ancien , explained how to start a one-place study.


By 1959 he was proposing to reconstitute the population of France from 1670 to 1829. As a founder of  Historical demography , Henry devised methods that went well beyond mere extraction, and he developed elaborate rules to correct bias and indicate which family histories could be used for different kinds of statistical analysis.


In England, family reconstitution methods were adopted and developed by the  Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure  established in 1964. Amateur one-place studies followed in the 1980s as an outgrowth of indexing projects under the leadership of John Dowding and Colin Mills and achieved regional scale with the  Devon Online Parish Clerks and One-Place Studies  project.


The fact that seven censuses from 1841 to 1901 provide a household-by-household record of the entire population may have reduced the perceived need in Britain for one-place studies compared to the interest they have generated in Germany and France. Many English studies therefore concentrate on the period before 1837, the year when open-access, national indexes of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales began. [1]


One-place studies exploit manuscript ecclesiastical and civil records to explore the microhistory of the villagers and their lives. In Europe, such records usually date back to about 1600 and include:


The internet has stimulated amateur one-place studies, especially in England, since websites allow large volumes of historic material to be published easily. One-place studies of urban parishes are less common, since urban populations were migratory and analysis is more difficult when few of the families remain present for the whole period under study.


While one-place studies in Britain are often pursued for simple enjoyment, amateur one-place studies in continental nations sometimes assert their value to social science. The introduction to a recent survey of German one-place studies listed the following topics that were likely to benefit from the research:


One-name studies  are compilations of worldwide information about persons sharing a surname, usually with a focus on discovering how they are related to one another. District studies, such as Norbert Michel's Rheingau, David Smart's Frome or US county heritage books, are more general than one-place studies, since they may deal with a dozen or more villages or parishes at once and concentrate on editing from the manuscript originals and publishing all the extant population lists up to the year 1900.


One-place studies can also be viewed as an element in the broader field of biographical indexing. That field includes ancient and medieval  prosopography  as well as compilations of annotated biographical indexes of professional groups, such as actors, clergy or members of parliament, or of migrant populations, and rolls of the dead such as the memorial book of Holocaust victims in Germany 1933–1945.


Parentado  is a principle of  kinship  tie that was practiced in early Modern  Europe . It is Italian for kin.  It suggests power that is gained through the alliance of  marriage , along with the exchange of  dowries  and women (as well as the power and influence a family gains due to these factors). Parentado stresses the key role of women in creating kinship ties. This is markedly different from the opposing term  casato  (from ‘casa’ meaning house) which places emphasis on kinship tie that descends from fathers to sons respectively.


Tension exists between the agnatic and cognatic perspectives of kinship. The agnatic/casato view is the vertical chain of fathers to sons (the  patriliny /lignaggio), and the contrary cognatic/ parentado view is based on the horizontal chain which includes affines, cognates, and the kin created through women. Thus the agnatic perspective removed women from the family map, whereas with the cognatic view, women were involved and seen as agents in kinship tie construction (through marital alliances and the exchange of dowries). It is also imperative to stress that both the agnatic and cognatic views existed at the same time throughout the history of  Italy  beginning from antiquity up to the end of the ancien regime.  "The two principles did not represent successive stages in the evolution of kinship but two coexisting ways to think about the family which would be complementary but also in conflict with each other". Hence, casa/casato refers to the agnatic perspective, and parentado refers to the cognatic perspective.


In early modern times, marriage across Europe was arranged in order to create social and political alliances. Unlike casato which stresses kinship tie between fathers and sons, parentado focuses on the role of women, and how women were essential to kinship tie formation as well. Hence, marriage was one of the ways that women were able to participate in this regard.  In this case, marriage depended on whether a new family unit would have the means to survive. Hence, marriage was extraordinarily significant. It was at its very basis a financial, political, and social arrangement which helped to ensure the lineage status through time. As a result, parents did not tend to leave it up to their children to decide. Further, they did not wish to allow the  church  to exercise absolute authority/control over the validity of the marriage contract either.


With regards to the nobility, marriage took place at a relatively young age. The reason for this was concern regarding the continuity of the lineage as well as the fear of short life expectancies which persuaded parents to strategize for marriage early on in life. Didactic Treatises provided for advice concerning the choice of a wife. "He should take into consideration the girl's beauty, family and wealth".  Aside from personal reasons, parents were seen to be looking and seeking a marriage which would improve the family's standing/position (through wealth, property/alliances for future advantages). While parents had high expectations, realism set in. While an advantageous alliance was desired, they were considerate of potential misfortunes.


Considerations regarding finance and property were crucial to the formation of marriages. Across all societal levels, families on both sides were expected to make provision in land/money. "The concept that no marriage could be finalized without a dowry, whether the dowry was paid by the family or by the girl itself, held true across Europe". Hence, a substantial amount of the resources of the  bride 's family was set out for her dowry. "Elite women thus received large dowries which in turn enriched their daughters' marriage possibilities". A medium-sized dowry that was paid was preferable to a large one that was not. The dowry came to be witnessed as incredibly necessary in creating and securing a new household, and in southern Europe particularly, maintaining the future of the bride given the unfortunate circumstance of being made a widow. Hence, the economic foundation was absolutely imperative with regards to marriage. Lack of a dowry was problematic for the poor, and attempts were made to ensure one took place. Also, the rank of the family and wealth were key factors in determining the size of a dowry. While dowries predominately came to be paid in money, property and goods could also be given.


Patrilineality , also known as the  male line , the  spear side [ 1 ]  or  agnatic kinship , is a common  kinship  system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritance of property, rights, names, or titles by persons related through male kin. This is sometimes distinguished from  cognate [ 2 ]  kinship, through the mother's lineage, also called the spindle side or the distaff side.


A patriline ("father line") is a person's father, and additional ancestors, as traced only through males.


In the  Bible , family and tribal membership appears to be transmitted through the father. For example, a person is considered to be a  priest  or  Levite , if his father is a priest or Levite, and the members of all the  Twelve Tribes  are called  Israelites  because their father is Israel ( Jacob ).


In the first lines of the  New Testament , the descent of  Jesus Christ  from  King David  is counted through the male lineage.


Patrilineal or agnatic succession gives priority to or restricts inheritance of a  throne  or  fief  to male heirs descended from the original title holder through males only. Traditionally, agnatic succession is applied in determining the names and membership of European  dynasties . The prevalent forms of  dynastic  succession in Europe, Asia and parts of Africa were  male-preference primogeniture ,  agnatic primogeniture , or  agnatic seniority  until after  World War II . The agnatic succession model, also known as  Salic law , meant the total exclusion of women as hereditary monarchs and restricted succession to thrones and inheritance of fiefs or land to men in parts of medieval and later Europe. This form of strict agnatic inheritance has been officially revoked in all extant European monarchies except the  Principality of Liechtenstein .


By the 21st century, most ongoing European monarchies had replaced their traditional agnatic succession with  absolute primogeniture , meaning that the first child born to a monarch inherits the throne, regardless of the child's sex.


The fact that human  Y-chromosome  DNA (Y-DNA) is paternally inherited enables patrilines and agnatic kinships of men to be traced through genetic analysis.


Y-chromosomal Adam  (Y-MRCA) is the patrilineal  most recent common ancestor  from whom all Y-DNA in living men is descended. An identification of a very rare and previously unknown Y-chromosome variant in 2012 led researchers to estimate that Y-chromosomal Adam lived 338,000 years ago (237,000 to 581,000 years ago with  95% confidence ), judging from  molecular clock  and  genetic marker  studies. [ 3 ]  Before this discovery, estimates of the date when Y-chromosomal Adam lived were much more recent, estimated to be tens of thousands of years.


The  Pauline Laws  are the  house laws  of the  Romanov  rulers of the  Russian Empire . The name comes from the fact that they were initially established by Emperor  Paul I of Russia  in 1797. Previously drafted privately as a contract between Paul Petrovich while being the heir apparent, and his wife  Maria Feodorovna (Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg) , it was made public and signed into law after Paul succeeded his mother  Catherine II  in November 1796 and was crowned Emperor.


The Grand Duke Paul, although proclaimed heir of the throne under his father Peter III in 1762, had been long denied succession by his mother Catherine II, who deposed (and possibly assassinated) his father later that year. Her long reign (1762-1796) was deemed by many of her contemporaries, and by Paul himself, as an usurpation. While still the heir, Paul designed a future legal instrument to preclude such coups and arbitrary successions. The text of the Pauline Laws stipulated that "the heir should be named by the Law itself so that there should be no doubt as to who should succeed".


Paul I abolished  Peter the Great 's law that allowed each reigning emperor or empress to designate his or her successor and substituted a strict  order of succession  by proclaiming that the eldest son of the monarch would inherit the throne, followed by other  dynasts  according to  primogeniture  in the male line. [ 1 ]  Paul thus implemented a  semi-Salic  line of succession to the Russian throne, which would pass to a female and through the female ( cognatic ) line of the dynasty only upon the extinction of all legitimately-born male  dynasts  (in this case, only the descendants of Paul I himself, not the Holstein-Gottorp 3rd cousins). [ 1 ]  Should the male line become extinct, the female issue of the last reigning monarch would have the priority rights to the throne. This system closely followed the  Pragmatic Sanction of 1713  that governed the succession of the  Habsburg monarchy .


A female eventually succeeding to the throne would have the style of Empress in her own right, but the laws stipulated that her husband would not become Emperor. A person in line of succession belonging to a religion other than  Eastern Orthodoxy  was presumed to either convert to this religion or renounce their succession rights. The law established Russian Emperors as "Heads of the Church".


A marriage of a member of the imperial family should not be considered valid until authorized by the Emperor (not unlike the British  Royal Marriages Act 1772 ). The legal majority age for an Emperor was established as 16 years; until that age, a regency was provided.


Immediately after the assassination of Paul I in 1801, however, his family did not appear to follow these laws strictly, as the oath of allegiance to  Alexander I of Russia  contained the words "and to His Imperial Majesty's Successor, who is to be designated", following the custom of Peter the Great. Later, Alexander I authorized the renunciation of succession rights of his brother and legal heir presumptive  Constantine Pavlovich  via a secret manifesto withheld until the Emperor's death. This legally controversial decision contravened the Pauline laws and triggered the  succession crisis of 1825 .


Over time, the house laws were amended, and in the late Russian Empire, the laws governing membership in the imperial house, succession to the throne, and other dynastic subjects were divided, with some being included in the  Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire  and others in the Statute of the Imperial Family (codification of 1906, as amended to 1911). [ 2 ]


The next monarch,  Nicholas I of Russia , and his successors adhered to the Pauline rules in practice. In 1825, 1855, and 1881, following the accession of a new Emperor, his eldest son was recognized as heir apparent and bestowed the title of Heir  Tsesarevich . In 1865, the future  Alexander III of Russia  became heir apparent and Tsesarevich following the death of  his elder brother . In 1894  Nicholas II of Russia  succeeded while still childless and his first four children were daughters. So his younger brothers, first  George , who died in 1899, and then  Michael  officially served as heirs presumptive until the birth of the Emperor's fifth child and the only son  Alexei , who became the last Russian heir apparent in 1904.


The latter, still minor, was however denied his succession rights in 1917, when during the  Russian Revolution  his father abdicated in favour of the Grand Duke Michael, then second in the line of succession, "as We do not wish to part from Our beloved son". This decision was partly triggered by the fact the teenage heir had  hemophilia , a condition that was not made public. Technically Nicholas II, albeit still an absolute monarch even under the Fundamental laws of 1906, had no right to remove his son from the order of succession under the Pauline laws, and the abdication of a reigning emperor was not provided for there either.


The Grand Duke Michael did not accept the crown in 1917 and the Russian monarchy was abolished. In 1918-1919 the former emperor Nicholas with his family, Grand Duke Michael, and many other Romanovs were killed by the Bolsheviks, and the succession of the defunct Russian throne became disputed between different surviving descendants of the Romanovs in emigration.


There was no precedent of regency under the Pauline law, the last legal regent being  Anna Leopoldovna  in 1740-1741. The laws did not provide for automatic identification of who should assume regency over a minor monarch. In 1825, 1855, and 1881, concurrently with the accession manifests of the Emperors, their next living brothers were appointed regents in the eventual situation of their respective nephews (who were all then minors) succeeding to the throne before the legal majority. However, these provisions were never put into effect as such a situation never occurred. In 1904, after the birth of Alexei, his uncle Michael was appointed the eventual regent in case Nicholas II died before his majority. Still, Nicholas rescinded this decision in early 1913 as Michael had contracted a marriage against his will. In all four cases, the eventual regent would be the next adult person in the line of succession.


The Pauline Laws stipulated only the monarchs themselves were of the Eastern Orthodox faith. They held no provisions of the religion embraced by the monarch's consort or the spouses of those in the line of succession, unlike the  Act of Settlement  of England. However, in practice, since 1740s, the brides of Romanov agnates, who were predominantly Protestant princesses of German states, typically did convert to Eastern Orthodoxy before the marriage and took a Russian name and patronymic that were later a part of their style as Grand Duchesses, such as  Elizaveta Alekseevna, Anna Fedorovna , etc. Exceptions were tolerated since 1870s for spouses of cadet Grand Dukes, not immediately in the line of succession, who might since then retain Protestantism but accepted a Russian style nevertheless. There existed an idea, never enshrined formally in law, that a descendant of a mother who was not Orthodox had a dubious status as a successor.  Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , known as Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, who had kept her Lutheran faith upon her marriage to   Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia  in 1874, converted to Orthodoxy 34 years later, shortly before her husband's death. According to some contemporary accounts she did so to strengthen the eventual claim of her sons to the Russian throne.


The original Pauline Laws did not contain legal provisions according to which the descendants of the Romanovs born out of an equal marriage (that is, from a legal marriage permitted by the reigning monarch, but other than with a member of another "reigning or possessing family") should be excluded from the succession. Such norms were first enacted as an additional norm by Alexander I on April 1 (O. S. March 20), 1820, upon the divorce of  Constantine Pavlovich  from  Princess Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld  and prior to his subsequent marriage to  Joanna Grudzińska . Furthermore, legal spouses of a member of the Imperial family having no "corresponding status" by birth were not accorded a status that the spouses of Grand Dukes would normally enjoy; typically these marriages, following the German tradition, are called "morganatic marriages" by historians. Neither a morganatic wife of a reigning Emperor, in a precedent settled by  Catherine Dolgorukova  in 1880, had the style of an Empress (although Alexander II, which is far from certain, might consider crowning her later but failed to do so as he was assassinated soon thereafter). Morganatic marriages of the Romanovs were not typically made public nor announced via manifestos, and if such spouses were created count(esse)s of prince(sse)s, their letters patent did not cite their marital status concerning the dynasty.


In the spring of 1911,  Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna of Russia  became engaged to  Prince Konstantin Alexandrovich Bagration  (1889–1915), a  Georgian  by birth who served in the  Russian Imperial Guard  regiment and would die in  World War I . She was to be the first  daughter of the Romanovs  who openly married a Russian subject or non-dynastic prince since the dynasty had ascended the throne in 1613. Her anxious father approached the  Emperor Nicholas II  and his empress,  Alexandra Fyodorovna of Hesse , for approval.


On 30 November 1910,  Grand Duke Constantine Konstantinovich  noted in one of his  posthumously -published journals ( From the Diaries of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich , Moscow, February 1994) that he had received assurances that "they would never look upon her marriage to a  Bagration  as  morganatic , because this House, like the  House of Orléans , is descended from a once ruling  dynasty ."


Previously, the  morganatic wives of Romanov grand dukes  had been  banished  from Russia, along with their disgraced husbands such as  Sophia von Merenberg, Countess de Torby  and  Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich , as well as  Princess Olga Paley  and  Grand Duke Paul Aleksandrovich ). Female Romanovs had dared to marry morganatically only in secret, and the couples' relationships remained open secrets, such as Empress  Elizabeth of Russia  and  Alexey Razumovsky , as well as the second marriage of  Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna  and Count Grigory  Stroganov ).


Nonetheless, Tatiana Konstantinovna's marriage was legally morganatic. [ 3 ]  It was in fact the first marriage in the dynasty conducted in compliance with the Emperor's formal decision not to accept as dynastic the marriages of even the most junior Romanovs, those who bore only the title of prince or princess, with non-royal partners. According to  Always a Grand Duke , the 1933 memoir of Nicholas II's brother-in-law,  Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich  (published in New York, by Farrar and Rinehart, Inc.), concern about the eventual marriages of  cadet  Romanovs so troubled the senior grand dukes that Alexander approached the Emperor about relaxing the requirement that all dynasts marry partners "possessing corresponding rank" enshrined in Article 188 of the Pauline Laws, but he was rebuffed. The grand dukes then officially petitioned the Emperor by a commission chaired by  Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolayevich of Russia , requesting that a new category of dynastic marriages be recognised, to consist of Imperial princes and princesses entitled, with specific Imperial consent, to marry persons of non-royal blood but retaining the right to transmit to the issue of eligibility to inherit the throne. The Emperor's response was issued formally on 14 June 1911 in the form of a  memorandum  from the  Minister of the Imperial Court , Baron  Vladimir Frederiks : [ 4 ]


The Lord Emperor has seen fit to permit marriages to persons not possessing corresponding rank of not all Members of the Imperial Family, but only of Princes and Princesses of the Blood Imperial ... Princes as well as Princesses of the Blood Imperial, upon contracting a marriage with a person not possessing corresponding rank, shall personally retain the title and privileges which are theirs by birth, with the exception of their right to succession from which they shall have abdicated before entering the marriage. In relation to the categorization of the marriages of Princes and Princesses of the Blood Imperial, the Lord Emperor has seen fit to recognize only two categories in these marriages: (a) equal marriages, i.e. those contracted with persons belonging to a Royal or Ruling House, and (b) unequal marriages, i.e. those contracted with persons not belonging to a Royal or Ruling House, and will not recognize any other categories.


As promised in that communiqué (the so-called "Frederiks Memorandum"), the Emperor proceeded to legalise authorised marriages of imperial Romanovs below grand ducal rank to those who lacked "corresponding rank". Such marriages had been altogether banned, rather than deemed morganatic, by  Alexander III's   ukase  #5868 on  23 March 1889. However,  ukase  #35731/1489, issued on 11 August 1911, amended the 1889 ban with these words: "Henceforth no grand duke or grand duchess may contract a marriage with a person not possessing corresponding rank, that is, not belonging to a Royal or Ruling house".


Both the 1889 and 1911 decrees were addenda to Article 188 of the Pauline laws (recodified as article 63 of the Imperial Family Statute). Left intact, however, was that original statute: "A person of the Imperial family who has entered into a marriage alliance with a person not possessing corresponding rank, that is, not belonging to a Royal or Ruling House, cannot pass on to that person, or to any posterity that may issue from such a marriage, the rights which belong to the Members of the Imperial family".


Also remaining unrepealed was Article 36 ("Children born of a marriage between a member of the Imperial Family and a person not of corresponding rank, that is, not belonging to a Royal or Ruling House, shall have no right of succession to the Throne"). Aside from Article 188, Article 36 applied to prevent Tatiana Konstantinovna's issue from claiming succession rights.


Her contemplated marriage having been rendered legal, Tatiana Konstantinovna renounced her dynastic rights, as was required. Nicholas II acknowledged that in a  ukase  addressed to the Imperial Senate on 9 February 1914: "Her Highness the Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna has presented to Us over Her own sign manual, a renunciation of the right to succession to the Imperial Throne of  All the Russias  belonging to Her as a member of the Imperial House". [ 5 ]  She received in return Nicholas II’s authorisation to marry Bagration-Mukhransky. That was the same family into which Princess Leonida Bagration of Mukhrani, the wife of Vladimir Cyrillovich, was born.


Tatiana Konstantinovna and her Georgian prince were married at her father's estate at  Pavlovsk , on 3 September 1911. The Emperor was present at the wedding and on the same day issued yet another  ukase  (#35766): "By Our and Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich's and Grand Duchess Elizaveta Mavrikievna’s consent, the wedding took place on 24th day of this August  [old style]  of the Daughter of Their Imperial Highnesses, Her Highness the Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna, with Prince Konstantin Bagration-Mukhransky. In consequence of this order: The Princess Tatiana Konstantiovna to retain the title of Highness and henceforth to bear the name of Her Highness the Princess Tatiana Konstantinovna Princess Bagration-Mukhransky...". [ 5 ]


In  genealogy ,  pedigree collapse  describes how reproduction between two individuals who share an ancestor causes the number of distinct ancestors in the family tree of their  offspring  to be smaller than it could otherwise be.  Robert C. Gunderson  coined the term; synonyms include  implex  and the German  Ahnenschwund  ("loss of ancestors"). [ 1 ]


Without pedigree collapse, a person's ancestor tree is a  binary tree , formed by the person, the parents (2), the grandparents (4), great-grandparents (8), and so on. However, the number of individuals in such a tree  grows exponentially  and will eventually become impossibly high. For example, a single individual alive today would, over 30 generations going back to the  High Middle Ages , have 2 30  or roughly 1 billion ancestors, more than the total  world population  at the time. [ 2 ] [ pages needed ]


This paradox is explained by shared ancestors. Instead of consisting of all different individuals, a tree may have multiple places occupied by a single individual. This typically happens when the parents of an ancestor are related to each other (sometimes unbeknownst to themselves). [ 3 ] [ 4 ]  For example, the offspring of two first cousins has at most only six great-grandparents instead of the usual eight. This reduction in the number of ancestors is referred to as pedigree collapse. It collapses the ancestor tree into a  directed acyclic graph .


In some cultures, cousins and other relations were permitted, encouraged, or required to  marry . This may have been to keep kin bonds, wealth and property within a family ( endogamy ) or simply because there was a limited number of potential marriage partners available. Among  royalty , the frequent requirement to marry only other royals resulted in a reduced  gene pool  in which most individuals were the result of extensive pedigree collapse.  Alfonso XII of Spain , for example, had only four great-grandparents instead of the usual eight. Furthermore, two of these great-grandparents,  Charles IV of Spain  and  Maria Luisa of Parma , who themselves were first cousins, were parents of another great-grandparent,  Maria Isabella of Spain . Essentially, Alfonso's parents were double first cousins, i.e. his two grandfathers were brothers and his two grandmothers were sisters, meaning there were only two sets of great-grandparents rather than four. In addition, each grandfather had married one of their sister's daughters, i.e. they had each married their sororal niece.


More generally, in many cultures intermarriage may frequently occur within a small village, limiting the available gene pool.


The  House of Habsburg  gives a well-documented example of pedigree collapse. In the case of  Charles II , the last Habsburg King of Spain, there were three uncle-niece marriages among the seven unions of his immediate ancestry (i.e. parents, grandparents and great-grandparents). His father and two of his great-grandfathers married their nieces. His paternal grandparents were  first cousins once removed , but they comprised two of the seven marriages because they were also parents to his maternal grandmother. His maternal grandparents' marriage and the final marriage of great-grandparents was between first cousins.


The maximum pedigree collapse of 50% within a single generation is caused by procreation between full siblings; such children have only two different grandparents instead of the usual four. If two half-siblings procreate, their children have three grandparents instead of four (25%).


If a child and parent were to procreate, their offspring would have four grandparents; so, procreation between parents and children would result in less pedigree collapse than procreation between full siblings – although one of the grandparents would also be a parent and therefore introduce no additional genes.


If a person procreates with a full sibling of one of their parents (as with the uncle-niece marriages mentioned above), the offspring have four different persons as grandparents, and eight great-grandparents, but again some of these contribute no additional genes (see  Inbreeding ).


Small, isolated populations such as those of remote islands represent extreme examples of pedigree collapse, but the common historical tendency to marry those within walking distance, due to the relative immobility of the population before modern transport, meant that most marriage partners were at least distantly related. Even in America around the 19th century, the tendency of immigrants to marry among their ethnic, language or cultural group produced many cousin marriages.


If one considers as a  function  of time  t  the number of a given individual's ancestors who were alive at time  t , it is likely that for most individuals this function has a maximum at around 1200 AD. It was suggested in 1985 that everyone on Earth is at most  50th cousin  to everyone else, based on a relatively random mating model. [ 5 ]  Simulations published in 2004 which take into account the geographical separations and less random patterns of mating in real life suggest that some populations are separated by up to a few thousand years, with a  most recent common ancestor  perhaps 76 generations back, though some highly remote populations may have been isolated for somewhat longer. [ 6 ] [ 7 ]


In  ancient Greece , a  phratry  ( Ancient Greek :  φρᾱτρῐ́ᾱ ,  romanized :  phrātríā ,  lit.   'brotherhood, kinfolk', derived from Ancient Greek:  φρᾱ́τηρ ,  romanized:  phrā́tēr ,  lit.   'brother') was a group containing citizens in some city-states. Their existence is known in most  Ionian  cities and in  Athens  and it is thought that they existed elsewhere as well. Almost nothing is known about the functions and responsibilities of phratries outside  Attica  (the area around  Athens ). Within  Athens , they played a prominent role in social and religious life, particularly in the major festival called the  Apatouria . They played an important role in determining eligibility for Athenian citizenship and all citizens (with very few exceptions) and only citizens were enrolled in phratries. [ 1 ]  Particularly in anthropology, the term is also applied to similar descent groups of multiple clans in other societies.


The origins of the phratry in ancient Greece are unknown. It is possible that they are  Ionian  in origin and that their presence in Athens stems from a known migration from Ionia in the late  Mycenaean  period. This was the origin explanation favored by many of the classical Athenians, including Aristotle. Some scholars also favor this explanation because phratries are known to have been present in most (but not all) of the Ionian city-states, as was the major phratry festival, the  Apatouria . However, almost nothing is known about the functions or prominence of the Apatouria and the phratries in Ionian city-states. It is therefore possible that they functioned differently from the Athenian phratries and perhaps even emerged separately. The linguistic origins of the word "phratry" are quite old and date back to the  Indo-European  period, thus giving rise to a second origin theory for phratries: that they date back to early antiquity and originated not in Ionia but elsewhere in  Greece . The term "phratry" itself is quite similar to a number of words for "brother" in languages derived from Indo-European which makes it more plausible that institutions named phratries emerged independently in  Attica  (where  Athens  is) and Ionia. The existence of the Apatouria in both Ionia and Athens complicates the second theory of origin somewhat, but at present scholars are highly uncertain about how phratries actually emerged. [ 1 ]


What little we do know about phratries from before the 5th century BCE is drawn primarily from  Homer  and from  Draco's  law of homicide, which probably dates to about 620 BCE. Homer mentions phratries numerous times in his works, although never in any detail. However, their casual mention heavily implies that they were well-established by Homer's time. Draco's law of homicide, from Athens, details who can pardon a murderer. First, the immediate family of the murderer's victim has the right to pardon the murderer. If there is no immediate family, the power then passes to the extended family. If the victim also has no extended family, then the power to pardon the murderer passes to members of the victim's phratry. Since there is no further instruction on what happens if the victim was not in a phratry, scholars have generally interpreted this as meaning that, as early as the 7th century BCE, all Athenian citizens were members of a phratry. Draco's law of homicide also states that the ten most aristocratic of the phratry members would be the ones to make the decision, implying that, at this early stage in Athenian history, the phratries were dominated by the aristocratic class. This would reflect the aristocratic dominance of the broader city-state at this time. [ 1 ]


Cleisthenes  undertook a major reorganization of Athenian institutions in 508 BCE. In general, he made Athens more democratic and less aristocratic. It is known that he reorganized and reconstituted the  phylai  and created the  demes , two other groups to which all Athenian citizens belonged. Whether or not he reformed the phratries is unknown. One leading scholar in the field, S.D. Lambert, speculates that the phratries were not involved in the military or political life or responsibilities of citizenship and that  Cleisthenes  only reorganized institutions in those areas. He further speculates that any change that did occur in the phratries was a reaction to the reorganization of other Athenian institutions rather than a reform undertaken directly by Cleisthenes. [ 1 ]


Phratries likely reached their peak importance in Athens between the 5th and 3rd centuries BCE, when we have the most extant records of them. In this time, they played a prominent role in Greek religious and social life. The number of phratries that existed during this period is unknown. The names of nine phratries are known and there are thought to have been at least thirty. There could have been as many as 140 phratries, the same as the number of demes in that period. Scholarly estimates place the Athenian citizen male population at between 20,000 and 30,000 in the 4th century BCE, which could mean phratries were as large as 1,000 adult males per phratry or as small as 140 adult males per phratry. It is also likely that different phratries were of different size and that phratries split or merged as demographic changes within them required. [ 1 ]


With very limited exceptions, membership in a phratry was limited to adult male citizens who were descended from adult male citizen members of that phratry. The sole known exceptions were naturalized citizens, who were usually enrolled in a phratry upon gaining Athenian citizenship. [ 1 ]  Citizenship and membership were main concerns for phratries in this period and surviving texts deal extensively with questions around membership. This is likely because the qualifications for Athenian citizenship were based upon descent from Athenian citizen fathers (and later, also mothers) and phratries were one of only two institutions that kept track of descent (the other being demes).


In 451 BCE,  Pericles  altered the qualifications for citizenship to require a citizen to have two Athenian parents rather than just Athenian citizen fathers. As phratries were the only institutions keeping track of the parentage of females (demes concerned themselves with males only), this law elevated concern with citizenship and membership in phratries. It seems that phratries altered their qualifications for membership to match the new citizenship requirements, but it is likely that the change was phratry-by-phratry rather than an explicit part of the new citizenship law. Phratries became even more concerned with citizenship and parentage during the Peloponnesian War, when widespread migration, military service and premature death heightened the difficulty of record keeping. [ 1 ]  The biggest cache of surviving documents, the decrees of a phratry called the Demotionodai centered in a town called  Decelea  in northern Attica, date from this period and almost exclusively discuss membership qualifications and introduction procedures. [ 2 ]


The biggest, most prominent and most important phratry festival was the Apatouria, a three day festival during the Athenian month of  Pyanepsion . This would place the festival during October or November, depending on the year. One of the biggest festivals of the year in Athens, the Apatouria contained many different rituals within it and likely differed somewhat depending on the phratry one was a member of. Among the most important parts of the festival were the  gamelia , the meion and the koureion. The gamelia was the process by which a phratry member introduced their new wife to the phratry, who welcomed and accepted her. Although females did not become phratry members, the phratry did have some supervision over the females in the households of adult male phratry members. The gamelia also gained additional importance after Pericles' new citizenship law of 451 BCE as it created a record of the history and qualifications of the wives of citizens and thus the eligibility for citizenship of their offspring. [ 1 ]


The meion was the ceremony in which phratry members first introduced their male children to the phratry. It is unknown whether the meion took place in every phratry, but there seems to have been no fixed rule as to when a phratry member should submit his child for the meion ceremony. The koureion was the second introduction of the male offspring to the phratry and probably occurred during adolescence. After undergoing the koureion, a male was considered a full member of the phratry. At both the meion and koureion, phratry members would have had the opportunity to object to the induction of the new member if they believed his parentage was insufficient. [ 1 ]  It is unclear whether the scrutiny procedure that followed was standard for every new member or only undertaken if someone objected. It also seems that the specific procedure of the meion, koureion, and scrutiny varied by phratry. There was also an induction ceremony for females, although the details are unknown. It is also unknown whether that was a universal ceremony, or whether it was only undertaken by some phratries or some families. [ citation needed ]


The Demotionodai decrees detail the scrutiny procedure for that phratry in the decades following the  Peloponnesian War . Potential inductees and the person who introduced them for scrutiny would be fined by the phratry if the inductee was deemed to not be eligible for phratry membership. The Demotionodai decrees also state that the scrutiny of a candidate for membership should be publicized in both Athens and Decelea, probably as a result of significant phratry migration from Decelea to Athens during the Peloponnesian War. The phratry was known to operate out of a barber shop in Athens where phratry members congregated. [ 1 ]  The procedures are also very concerned with the introduction of candidates for phratry membership who do not have parents to vouch for their eligibility. This was likely a major concern of the period due to heavy death brought on both by plague and war and was probably of particular concern for the Demotionodai phratry because of its center in Decelea, a frontier area occupied by  Sparta  during the war. [ citation needed ]


The Demotionodai decrees also make clear that there were elected phratry officers, led by an elected patriarch. This would mark a democratic change from the aristocratic phratry leadership as implied in Draco’s law centuries earlier and would mirror democratic changes in broader Athenian society. The decrees also make clear that the phratry had an independent treasury, as there were fines levied on candidates for membership who were refused membership after the scrutiny procedure. [ 2 ]  It is thought that both the elected leadership and institutional finances were common to other phratries as well and there are records of the phratries themselves acting as lending agents and landlords. [ 1 ]


The only reliable extant records of citizens without phratry membership also date to around the time of the Peloponnesian War. Citizenship was granted to the  Plataeans  in 427 BCE, the  Samians  in 405/4 BCE and the Heroes of Phyle in 401/0 BCE, but none of these grants included enrolment in a phratry. The Plataeans were enrolled in demes, but the  Samians  and Heroes of Phyle were not. [ 1 ]  This suggests that these groups had somewhat limited citizenship, as membership in a phratry and deme were prerequisites to most of the privileges and duties of citizenship. It is unknown whether there were other grants of citizenship to individuals or groups that did not include phratry membership, but it is thought to have been uncommon and there are no other reliable records of citizens, naturalized or not, who were not enrolled in phratries. [ citation needed ]


Around 250 BCE, the extant references to phratries decrease quite a bit. From 250 BCE to 150 BCE the only surviving references to phratries are citizenship grants that enroll new citizens in a phratry, but it is not clear whether that means that phratries were still heavily active. Those same new citizens were also enrolled in phylai, which had been essentially dormant for centuries, although they technically still existed. After 150 BCE, citizenship grants no longer include enrollment in phratries, demes or phylai. Scholars believe that the decline of phratries is related to the decline in importance of Athenian citizenship. As Athens lost both its empire and its independence, the importance of tightly controlling Athenian citizenship and the benefits associated with citizenship heavily decreased. As phratries were tightly linked to eligibility for citizenship and participation in the duties of citizenship, it is thought that they declined as a result. Another related and complementary theory is that citizenship became more tightly linked to military service rather than descent, which had a similar effect on the phratries and their ceremonies of scrutiny and induction. [ 1 ]


Polish heraldry  is the study of the  coats of arms  that have historically been used in  Poland  and the  Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . It treats of specifically Polish heraldic traits and of the Polish heraldic system, contrasted with heraldic systems used elsewhere, notably in Western Europe. Due to the distinctive ways in which  feudal societies  evolved, Poland's heraldic traditions differ substantially from those of the modern-day German lands and France.


Polish heraldry is an integral part of the history of the Polish  szlachta  ( nobility ).


Unlike Western Europe, in Poland, the Polish nobles  szlachta  did not emerge exclusively from the  feudal  class of  knights  but stemmed in great part from earlier  Slavic  local rulers and free warriors and mercenaries. Rulers often hired these free warriors and mercenaries to form military units ( Polish :  Drużyna ) [ 1 ]  and eventually, in the 11th century during the time of  Casimir I the Restorer  with the development of  feudalism , armies paid by the Prince were replaced by knights that were paid in land. [ 2 ]   Much written evidence from the Middle Ages demonstrates how some elements of the Polish nobility did emerge from former Slavic rulers that were included in the ranks of the knightly class under the terms of the chivalric law ( ius militare ) and  iure polonico  [ pl ] . [ 3 ] [ 4 ]


Because Polish clans ( Polish :  Rody ) have different origins, only part of the  szlachta  can be traced all the way back to the traditional old  clan  system based on  kinship . The clans that could show kinship belonged to a House ( Polish :  Dom ), [ 5 ]  such as the  House of Odrowąż . Later, when different Houses created different surnames for each property, the House turned into the Clan Odrowąż. Other szlachta were not related and their unions were mostly voluntary and based on fellowship and brotherhood rather than kinship, still being full members of the Clan, creating Clan politics like in  Clan Ostoja  or  Clan Abdank , but forming a  heraldic clan . Near the end of the history of the  Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , due to adoptions and other circumstances, all Clans in Poland turned into  Heraldic Clans . [ 6 ] [ 7 ]


In the year 1244,  Bolesław, Duke of Masovia , identified members of the knights' clan as members of a  genealogia:


I received my good servitors [Raciborz and Albert] from the land of [Great] Poland, and from the clan [ genealogia ] called  Jelito ,  with my well-disposed knowledge [i.e., consent and encouragement] and the cry [ vocitatio ], [that is], the  godło,  [by the name of]  Nagody,  and I established them in the said land of mine, Masovia, [on the military tenure described elsewhere in the charter]. [ 8 ]


The documentation regarding Raciborz and Albert's tenure is the earliest surviving of the use of the clan name and cry defining the honorable status of Polish knights.  The names of knightly  genealogiae  only came to be associated with heraldic devices later in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period.  The Polish clan name and cry ritualized the  ius militare,  i.e., the power to command an army; and they had been used sometime before 1244 to define knightly status. [ 9 ]


According to Polish historian  Tadeusz Manteuffel , a Polish  clan  ( ród ) consisted of people related by blood and descending from a common ancestor, giving the ród/clan a highly developed sense of solidarity (see  gens ). The  starosta  (or starszyna) had judicial and military power over the ród/clan, although this power was often exercised with an assembly of elders. Strongholds called  gród  were built where a unifying religious cult was powerful, where trials were conducted, and where clans gathered in the face of danger. The  opole  was the territory occupied by a single tribe. [ 10 ]  Such clans often used signs (proto-coat of arms) [ 11 ]  that later, during 13th century become coat of arms of the House or the Clan. The origin of those proto-CoAs is controversial. Some, like Sulimirski, claim Sarmatian origin [ 12 ]  and some like historian  Franciszek Piekosiński  claim that those signs are  Runes  of dynastic tribal rulers. [ 13 ] [ 14 ]


Heraldic symbols began to be used in Poland in the 13th century. [ 15 ]  The generic  Polish  term for a coat of arms,  herb , was used for the first time in the year 1415 at the Royal Office with text  et quatuor herbis , [ 16 ] [ 17 ]  originating as a borrowing of the  Czech   erb , which in turn came from the German  Erbe  –  heritage . [ 18 ] [ 19 ]


During the  Union of Horodło  (1413), 47  Prince  and  Boyar  families of the  Grand Duchy of Lithuania  were adopted into 47 Polish noble clans and began to use Polish coats of arms. [ 20 ]


Since there was no  heraldic authority  in Poland or in the  Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth , many old Polish coats of arms were changed over time by different publications, losing their original appearance. The  Heraldic Commission  [ pl ]  was registered on 20 January 2010. [ 21 ]  Although many medieval Polish coats of arms were presented in  Western European   rolls of arms , [ 22 ]  there were no publications that presented original coats of arms in Poland until the 20th century, when  Adam Heymowski  [ pl ]  began recovering old Polish coats of arms. His work was continued by Professor  Józef Szymański  [ pl ] , who finally published an armorial of original Polish coats of arms. [ 23 ]


The ancient Pałuki [ 24 ]  family coat of arms was visually close to the  Topór coat of arms , and in time a similar coat was assumed by Clan Topór. [ 25 ]  As the  Ostoja coat of arms  evolved, the dragon was replaced by feathers and the cross by the sword, followed by other changes between ancient and modern versions. [ 26 ]


Many Polish coats of arms feature so-called variations, which are particular to Polish heraldry. In many cases, variations are simple errors, sometimes the family wished to make a distinction within the clan and in other cases coats have been called variations of a particular family's coat just because they look similar, which all together create a unique  heraldic clan  organisation in Poland. This is presented in the second part of the gallery, which shows many different variations of the Ostoja coat of arms. [ 27 ] [ 28 ] [ 29 ]


None of the variations above have anything in common with Ostoja, they just look similar.


Starting with proto-arms and families like  Odrowąż  being the  House of Odrowąż , Polish family names were appended in many cases with - cki  or - ski  in reference to the name of their properties; for example, if a person named Chełmski acquired the town of Poniec, he would change his surname to Poniecki. [ 32 ]  Furthermore, a Jerzykowski (de Jerzykowo) that owned the property of Baranowo changed his surname to Baranowski (de Baranowo) and a Baranowski that owned the property of Chrzastowo change the surname to Chrzastowski (de Chrzastowo). [ 33 ]  A family became a clan or "heraldic family" using the same coat of arms. Later, when clans adopted several families, they formed heraldic clans, families using the same arms, in many cases defending clan politics but not necessarily blood related to each other. [ 27 ] [ 34 ]


Although the Polish heraldic system evolved under the influence of German heraldry, there are many notable differences.


The most striking peculiarity of the system is that a coat of arms does not belong to a single family. A number of unrelated families (sometimes hundreds of them), usually with a number of different family names, may use the same,  undifferenced  coat of arms, and each coat of arms has its own name. The total number of coats of arms in this system was relatively low – ca. 160 (Piekosiński [ 35 ] [ 36 ] ) in the late Middle Ages. [ 37 ]  The same can be also seen in Western Europe when families of different surnames but sharing clan origin would use similar coats-of-arms, the fleur-de-lis of the many Capetian families being perhaps the best-known example.


One side-effect of this unique arrangement was that it became customary to refer to noblemen by both their family name and their coat of arms name (or  clan name ). For example,  Jan Zamoyski   herbu   Jelita  means "Jan Zamoyski of the Jelita coat of arms" (though it is often translated as "of the clan Jelita" or  herbu  is Latinized  de armis ). From the 15th to 17th centuries, the formula seems to have been to copy the ancient  Roman naming convention :  praenomen  (or given name),  nomen gentile  (or  Gens /Clan name) and  cognomen  (surname), following the Renaissance fashion. So we have  Jan Jelita Zamoyski , forming a  double-barrelled name  ( nazwisko złożone , literally "compound name"). Later, the double-barrelled name began to be joined with a hyphen:  Jan Jelita-Zamoyski . (See  Polish names ). [ 38 ] [ 39 ]


The Polish émigrés of the 19th century sometimes used adaptations of their names according to the Western European (mainly French) style, becoming e.g. Balthasar Klossowski de  Rola  ( Balthus ), Jean de Bloch ( Jan Gotlib Bloch ), or  Tamara de Lempicka . Some would also keep the Latin forms of their surnames, as Latin was the official language of the Kingdom of Poland, hence the popularity of Late-Medieval or Early-Modern forms such as "de Zamosc Zamoyski". [ 40 ]


A single coat of arms could appear in slightly different versions, typically in different colours, depending on the custom of the family using it. Such variations ( odmiany ) are still considered as representing the same coat of arms. [ 41 ]


One of the most visually striking characteristics of Polish heraldry is the abundance of  gules  (red) fields. Among the oldest coats of arms in Poland, nearly half use a red background, with blue ( azure ) coming in a distant second. Nowhere else in Europe is there seen such a strong bias towards a particular colour scheme. It follows, however, the well-known heraldic custom of all Europe, of the vassals following the colour-scheme of their overlord, which found practical use on the battlefield. [ 41 ]


Other typical features used in Polish heraldry include horseshoes, arrows,  Maltese crosses , scythes, stars, and crescents. [ 42 ]  There are also many purely geometrical shapes for which a separate set of heraldic terms was invented. [ 43 ]  It has been suggested that originally all Polish coats of arms were based on such abstract geometrical shapes, but most were gradually "rationalized" into horseshoes, arrows and so on. If this hypothesis is correct, it suggests in turn that Polish heraldry, also unlike western European heraldry, may be at least partly derived from the  Tamgas , marks used by  Eurasian nomads  such as the  Sarmatians , [ 12 ]   Avars  and  Mongols , to mark property. Evidence of the origins of the system was considered scanty, and the hypothesis has been criticized as being part of " Sarmatism " (the Polish tradition of romanticizing their supposed Sarmatian ancestry). However, recent DNA projects that concern Polish Nobility proved that at least part of Polish Nobility is of Sarmatian origin. [ 44 ] [ 45 ] [ 46 ]


A Polish coat of arms consists of  shield ,  crest ,  helm , and  crown .  Mantling  became fashionable during the 18th and 19th centuries.  Supporters ,  mottos , and  compartments  normally do not appear, although certain individuals used them, especially in the final stages of the system's development, partly in response to French and German influence. Preserved medieval evidence shows Polish coats-of-arms with  mantling  and  supporters . [ 41 ]


Polish coats of arms are divided in the same way as their  western counterparts . However, Polish coats of arms is applied on clans rather than to separate families and new families where adopted to the Clan, using same CoA. Thus Polish  escutcheons  are rarely parted, there are however a lot of preserved quartered coats-of-arms. These would most often show the arms of the four grandparents of the bearer. Or also the paternal-paternal great-grandmother in the 5th field if the male-line coat-of-arms goes in the heart field. [ 47 ]


The tradition of differentiating between the  coat of arms  proper and a  lozenge  granted to women did not develop in Poland. By the 17th century, usually, men and women inherited a coat of arms from their father or mother or even both (or a member of a clan who had adopted them).  But also men or women could permanently adopt the arms of their wives or husbands and transmit them to their children, even after remarriages. The  brisure  was rarely used.  All children would inherit the coat(s) of arms of their parent(s) and transmit them to their children. This partly accounts for the relatively large proportion of Polish families who had adopted a coat of arms by the 18th century.  Another factor was the trend of the nobly titled marrying "commoners" and passing on their title to their spouse and children, forbidden in the Middle Ages. An illegitimate child could adopt her/his noble mother's surname and title with the consent of the mother's father but was often adopted and raised by the natural father's family, thereby acquiring the father's surname and title. [ 48 ]


Heart-shaped shields were mostly used in representations of the coats of arms of royalty. Following the  union between Poland and Lithuania , and the creation of the elective monarchy, it became customary to place the coats of Poland and  Lithuania  diagonally, with the coat of arms of the specific  monarch  placed centrally on top. Research continues to find out what a "heart-shaped" shield is. Most likely, the coat of Poland was placed on the left-right diagonal (I & IV) and Lithuania on the right-left diagonal (II & III) as evidenced in the shield at the top of this page. The specific monarch crest then being placed in the "heart" position. [ 49 ]


In addition to these seven basic  tinctures , which were standard in western Europe, many more tinctures were used in Poland and (after the union with Poland) Lithuania. [ 41 ] [ 50 ]


Traditionally coats of arms were published in various listings of  szlachta  and in  armorials , known in  Polish  as  herbarz . Such publications, akin to  Almanach de Gotha  or  Gelre Armorial  and descended from the tradition of  rolls of arms , appeared in Poland regularly from the 15th century onwards. The first such armorial was  Insignia seu clenodia incliti Regni Poloniae  by  Jan Długosz . In recent years growing interest in family histories has led to publication of numerous newly compiled listings of coats of arms and families. Some of the most notable among such publications are:


In  genealogy , the  progenitor  (rarer:  primogenitor ;  German :  Stammvater  or  Ahnherr ) is the – sometimes  legendary  – founder of a  family ,  line of descent ,  clan  or  tribe ,  noble house , or  ethnic group . [ 1 ]   Genealogy  (commonly known as family history) understands a progenitor to be the earliest  recorded   ancestor  of a  consanguineous  family group of  descendants .


Progenitors are sometimes used to describe the status of a genealogical research project, or in order to compare the availability of genealogical data in different times and places. Often, progenitors are implied to be  patrilineal . If a patrilineal  dynasty  is considered, each such dynasty has exactly one progenitor.


Aristocratic  and  dynastic families  often look back to an ancestor who is seen as the founder and progenitor of their house (i.e. family line). Even the old  Roman legal concept  of  agnates  ( Latin  for "descendants") was based on the idea of the unbroken family line of a progenitor, but only includes male members of the family, whilst the women were referred to as " cognatic ".


It is rarely possible to confirm  biological parenthood  in the case of ancient family lines (see  bastardy ). In addition, the progenitor is often a distant ancestor, only known as a result of  oral tradition . Where people groups and communities rely solely on a  patrilinear  family line, their common ancestor often became the subject of a legend surrounding the origin of the family. By contrast, families and peoples with a  matrilinear  history trace themselves back to an original female  progenitrix . Matrilinear  rules of descent  are found in about 200 of the 1300 known  indigenous peoples  and  ethnic groups  worldwide, whilst around 600 have patrilineal rules of descent (from father to son). [ 2 ]


In the  mythological beliefs  of the  Romans  the god of war,  Mars , was viewed as the progenitor of the Romans; [ 3 ]  which is why the  Mars symbol  ( ♂ , a shield and spear), is used to refer to the  male sex . Besides cities and countries,  ethnic groups  may also have a progenitor (often a god) in their mythologies, for example, the  Hellenistic   Greeks  look back to  Hellen  as their progenitor. In Indian   Hinduism   Manu  is the progenitor of all mankind. In the  Abrahamic religions ,   Adam ,  Noah ,  Abraham  and others are described as progenitors (see also  Biblical patriarchy ).


In  archaeogenetics  (archaeological genetics), a human  Y-chromosomal Adam  has been named as the  most recent common ancestor  from whom all currently living people are descended patrilinearly. This Adam lived in  Africa  at a time variously estimated from 60,000 to 338,000 years ago. And  Mitochondrial Eve , the most recent common ancestor in the matrilineal line, is estimated to have lived from 100,000 to 230,000 years ago. (There being no suggestion that these, “Eve” and “Adam”, lived at nearby times or places. And there were many other common ancestors in other lines of descent.)


In law, a  prohibited degree of kinship  refers to a degree of  consanguinity  (blood relatedness), or sometimes  affinity  (relation by marriage or sexual relationship) between persons that makes sex or marriage between them illegal.


An  incest taboo  between parent and child or two full-blooded siblings is a  cultural universal . Taboos against sexual relations between individuals of other close  degrees of relationship  vary.  The probable biological basis for the generality of the marital  incest taboo  is that matings between close relatives lead to progeny that tend to experience  inbreeding depression , due largely to the increased expression of recessive deleterious  mutations . [ 1 ]


Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China  Article 1048 stipulated that persons who are lineal relatives by blood, or collateral relatives by blood up to the third degree of kinship are prohibited from being married.


According to the  official explanation , the calculation of degree of consanguinity in China is similar to  Roman civil law  with some difference. Aforementioned "collateral relatives by blood up to the third degree of kinship" include:


In Imperial China (221 BCE to 1912), marriage between first cousins was partially allowed. Marrying the child of one’s paternal aunt, maternal uncle, or maternal aunt was generally accepted in Chinese history during most of China’s dynastic era. However, among other exceptions, marrying the child of your paternal uncle was strictly prohibited, as such a marriage was seen as one between siblings as each of the couple bore the same family name. [ 2 ]


Roman civil law  prohibited marriages within four degrees of consanguinity. [ 3 ]  This was calculated by counting up from one prospective partner to the common ancestor, then down to the other prospective partner. [ 4 ]  The first prohibited degree of consanguinity was a parent-child relationship while a second degree would be a sibling relationship. A third degree would be an uncle/aunt with a niece/nephew while fourth degree was between first cousins. [ 4 ]  Any prospective marriage partner with a blood relationship outside these prohibited degrees was considered acceptable. [ 4 ]


The  Roman Catholic Church  and  Eastern Orthodox Church  have a long history of marital prohibitions, [ citation needed ]  called  impediments to marriage , which limit the marriage of two closely related relatives. Initially,  canon law  followed Roman civil law until the early 9th century, when the  Western Church  increased the number of prohibited degrees from four to seven. [ 5 ]  The method of calculation was also changed to simply count the number of generations back to the common ancestor. [ 6 ]  This meant that marriage to anyone up to and including a sixth cousin was prohibited. The  Fourth Lateran Council  of 1215 decreed a change from seven prohibited degrees back to four (but retaining the same method of calculating; counting back to the common ancestor). [ 7 ]


In  Australia , the  Marriage Act 1961  prohibits a marriage to a direct ancestor or descendant or sibling (whether full sibling or  half sibling ), including those arising from a legal adoption. Such marriages are void. [ 8 ]


The  1662  Book of Common Prayer  of the  Church of England , long used in various forms through a broad swathe of Anglicanism, included a  Table of Kindred and Affinity  listing the prohibited degrees of kinship within which one could not marry  due to  consanguinity  or marital affinity. [ 9 ]  The list was enacted by the  Marriage Act 1949  which with significant changes continues to apply in England and Wales. [ 10 ]  The list was cut back by the  Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Act 1986 , by deleting from the list prohibitions based on  affinity relationships , and added to in other respects. Marriages that continue to be prohibited in England and Wales by the 1949 Act are as follows:


The  Children Act 1975  added the following prohibitions:


The  Marriage Act 1949  also prohibited marriage to the following  affinity relations , but these were repealed by the  Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Act 1986 : [ 11 ]


The  Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Act 1986  prohibits a marriage to the following, until both parties are aged 21 or over, and provided that the younger party has not at any time before attaining the age of 18 been a child of the family in relation to the other party:


The  Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Act 1986  also prohibits a marriage to the following:


The Marriage Act 1949 (Remedial) Order 2007 [ 12 ]  accepted the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights and removed the ban on marriage with a former mother-in-law/daughter-in-law.


In South Africa, sexual relations are prohibited within the first degree of  affinity , that is, where one person is the direct ancestor or descendant of the spouse of the other person. [ 13 ]


Article 983 of the Civil Code  stipulates that a person may not marry any of the following relatives:


(1) A lineal relative by blood or by marriage;


(2) A collateral relative by blood is within the sixth degree of relationship. The limit to marriage shall not be applicable to persons of lineal relative within the fourth degree of relationship and collateral relative within the sixth degree of relationship by adoption.


(3) A collateral relative by marriage is within the fifth degree of relationship of a different rank.
The marriage prohibitions between relatives by marriage provided in the preceding paragraph shall continue to apply even after the dissolution of the marriage which has created the relationship.
The limit to marriage with the lineal relative by blood or by marriage set forth in the first paragraph hereof shall be applicable to persons of lineal relative by adoption after ending of the adoption relationship.


The  Judicial Yuan Interpretation  No.32 and No. 91 allows marriage between siblings by adoption when the  adoption was intended for the marriage . When the interpretation was made, it was not uncommon for parents to adopt a child so that their own child can marry the adopted child when both children have grown up.


Article 968  and  970  of the Civil Code states that "the degree of relationship by blood between a person and his lineal relative by blood shall be determined by counting the number of generations upwards or downwards from himself [as the case may be], one generation being taken as one degree. As between the person and his collateral relative, the degree of relationship shall be determined by the total number of generations counting upwards from himself to the common lineal ancestor and then from such common ancestor downwards to the relative by blood with whom the degree of relationship is to be determined." The line and degree of relationship between relatives by marriage shall be determined as follows:


(1) In regard to the spouse of a relative by blood, by the line and degree of relationship of the person who is married to the said spouse;


(2) In regard to a relative by blood of a spouse, by the line and the degree of relationship between such relative by blood and the said spouse;


(3) In regard to the person who is married to the relative by blood of his spouse, by the line and the degree of relationship between such person and the said spouse.


In short, a person can be considered as being "merged" with their spouse when counting degree of relationship.


30 U.S. states prohibit most or all marriage between first cousins. Six states prohibit marriages between first cousins once removed. [ 14 ]  Some states that prohibit cousin marriage recognize cousin marriages performed in other states. [ 15 ]


As of 2023, no formal federal law in the Russian Federation imposed any penalty for marriages between close relatives; however, in practice, it's hard, if not impossible, to get into such a marriage. Article 14 of the  Family Code of the Russian Federation  stipulates that marriages between close relatives (determined by a direct bloodline) are prohibited, but no penalty is specified. [ 16 ]  In modern Russia, it's also uncommon for first cousins to marry each other. The exact rules depend on the traditions of the  concrete regions  and may vary despite a formally written law. In legal practice as of 2022, at least in one case, the Russian Supreme Court nullified a marriage between a father and daughter. [ 17 ]


Since the 13th century, a ban on marriages between close relatives has been formalized by the  Russian Orthodox Church  in the  nomocanon , referred to as  Kormchaia . Kormchaia stipulated written rules on how to determine which marriages were invalid. Generally, all marriages that resulted in crossing bloodlines were prohibited. [ 18 ]


In terms of sexual relationships and intercourse in rural Russia, the practice of  Snokhachestvo  was widespread in the 16th and 18th centuries. Over time, it gradually waned because families became more  nuclear .


Kormchaia was used up until 1810, when the  Most Holy Synod  issued a  circular  that temporarily liberalized rules. In practice, such rules were enforced loosely, if at all, and were easy to circumvent. The  old believers  didn't follow them either. Peasants often weren't educated enough to identify their relationships with others, so they married their relatives. [ 18 ]  Aristocracy wasn't excluded from marrying relatives:  Alexander Herzen , a socialist writer of the 19th century of aristocratic origin, married his cousin, for example.


In  Imperial Russia  up until 1917, all marriages were mostly ceremonial and religious and were the only ones considered "legal" (no formally established institution existed at the time that could account for such marriages). [ 18 ]  Despite the power and strong opposition from the  Russian Orthodox Church , in practice, marriages between first, second, and cousins were quite widespread among the  Russian peasantry , according to one study. There were also cases of such marriages between the  royal family  and  nobility  during this time, with some marriages being nullified. [ 19 ] [ 18 ]


Statutes in the  U.S. state of Georgia  disqualify a  juror  if that person is related "by consanguinity or affinity" to any party "within the sixth degree as computed according to the civil law". [ 20 ]


Virginia  rulings in  Jaques v. Commonwealth , 51 Va. (10 Gratt.) 690 (1853), stated the long-standing, common-law rule disqualifying a  venireman  (juror) who is related, within the ninth degree of consanguinity or affinity, to a party to a  suit . [ 21 ]


Puisne  ( / ˈ p juː n i / ; from  Old French   puisné , modern  puîné , "later born, younger" (and thence, "inferior") from late  Latin   post- , "after", and  natus , "born") is a legal  term of art  used mainly in  British English  meaning "inferior in rank". [ 1 ] [ 2 ]


The judges and barons of the national common law courts at  Westminster , other than those having a distinct title, were called puisne. This was reinforced by the  Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1877  following which a " puisne judge " is officially any of those of the  High Court  other than the  Lord Chancellor , the  Lord Chief Justice of England  and the  Master of the Rolls  (plus the abolished positions of  Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas , and the  Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer ). [ 3 ]


Puisne courts existed as lower courts [ citation needed ]  in the early stages in the judiciary in  British North America , in particular  Upper Canada  and  Lower Canada . The justices of the  Supreme Court of Canada  other than the  Chief Justice  are still referred to as  puisne justices .


In  England and Wales , a puisne mortgage is a  mortgage  over an  unregistered   estate in land  where the mortgagee (lender) does not take possession of the  title deeds  from the mortgagor (borrower) as  security . [ 4 ]  A puisne mortgage may be  registered  with  HM Land Registry  as a Class C(i) Land Charge under the  Land Charges Act 1972 , [ 5 ] [ 6 ]  although even if such a mortgage is registered it will not necessarily be enforceable. [ 7 ] [ 8 ]  Puisne mortgages are generally a second or subsequent mortgage, [ 9 ] [ 10 ]  and in the event of  default  of the mortgagor generally rank in the order of registration, not in the order in which they were created. [ 11 ]


Kin punishment  is the practice of punishing the family members of someone who is accused of committing a  crime , either in place of or in addition to the perpetrator of the crime. It refers to the principle in which a family shares responsibility for a crime which is committed by one of its members, and it is a form of  collective punishment . Kin punishment has been used as a form of  extortion ,  harassment , and  persecution  by  authoritarian  and  totalitarian  states. Kin punishment has been practiced historically in  Nazi Germany ,  China ,  Japan , and  South Korea ; and presently in  North Korea .


Traditional Irish law required the payment of a tribute ( Éraic ) in reparation for murder or other major crimes. In the case of homicide, if the attacker fled, the fine had to be paid by the tribe to which he belonged. [ 1 ]


In medieval Welsh law, the kin of an offender was liable to make compensation for his wrongful act. This penalty (called  Galanas ) was generally limited to murder. [ 2 ]


The medieval Polish  Główszczyzna  fine functioned similarly to the Anglo-Saxon and  Scandinavian   weregild .


Traditional Arab society, which is  clan-based , strongly adheres to the concept of collective responsibility.  Bedouins  recognize two main forms of penalty for a crime against a member. These are blood revenge, referred to as  Qisas  (قصا, "revenge") and blood money,  Diyya  (دية, "blood money"/"ransom"). In cases of severe crimes such as murder and rape, blood revenge is the prescribed punishment. If a murder occurs, clansmen of the victim have the right to kill the murderer or one of his male clansmen with impunity. Certain crimes justify multiple acts of revenge, for example, the murder of women and children is avenged fourfold. Crimes considered treacherous, such as the murder of a guest, are also avenged fourfold. [ citation needed ]


Alternatively, a crime punishable by blood revenge can be commuted to a severe fine if the family of the offended party agrees to it. Blood money is paid jointly by the clan of the offending member to the clan of the victimized member.  Bedouins  differentiate between crimes in which the group must pay as a standing obligation without reimbursement from the perpetrator of the offense, and crimes where the latter must reimburse them. Crimes where the clan is obligated to pay a joint fee without any reimbursement are murder, violent assault, or insults and other offenses committed during a violent conflict. The collective payment of fines for such crimes is viewed as a justified contribution to the welfare of the injured party rather than a penalty to the perpetrator. Other offenses given a blood-price are crimes against property and crimes against honor. [ 3 ]  Concepts based on the Arabian laws of blood revenge and blood money are found in Islamic  Sharia  law, and are thus variously adhered to in Islamic states. [ citation needed ]


After the  Saudi Arabian  trial and verdict of the  assassination of Jamal Khashoggi , which the United Nations rapporteur on summary executions, Agnès Callamard, called " extrajudicial execution  for which the state of Saudi Arabia is responsible,” [ 4 ]  Khashoggi's sons pardoned the five convicted officials on 22 May 2020, which means the officials would not be executed but their  blood money  will be paid to Khashoggi's family. [ 5 ]