Tills döden skiljer dem åt - en studie om arvsrätten mellan makar

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this paper is to study how the surviving spouse’s inheritance rights and other financial guarantees in case of death of the other spouse are constructed and from a gender perspective’s analyse this legislation in order to gain a deeper understanding of why the rules are designed in this specific way. In order to discuss the gender perspectives impact on the Swedish law it’s important to have knowledge about the historical development of marriage- and inheritance law. The Swedish inheritance law is based on old and traditional principles derived from the medieval provincial laws. The basic idea of inheritance was, and still often is, kinship. The blood connection determined who was the legal heir. Real property was the main economic and social asset to man, this is why the kin and the family played such an important role in the society. It was important to keep the real property within in the family and this led to that inheritance- and marriage law in some parts was designed to meet the family’s need to keep the real property within the family. The idea of kinship as the basis for inheritance was intact until the early 1900’s. At this period the kin and the family lost its position in favour of the individual. Real property was no longer the most important social and economic asset for all people. An idea that not only the blood relation would determine who was the legal heir was born, the social cohesion between the deceased and the heirs would also be considered. This resulted in two reforms, the cousin’s right to inherit was cut off and the surviving spouse received right to inherit after her deceased husband. The main argument for the inheritance right of the surviving spouse was that it was considered important to protect a surviving spouse from an excessive financial change in connection with the other spouse’s death. The children’s inheritance right, were in some extent, put back for the surviving spouse’s needs. The legislature found that children were no longer dependent on their parents’ legacy for their livelihood. Instead widows and widowers were in greater need of the estate of the deceased so they wouldn’t have to suffer excessive financial changes in the event of death of a spouse. The consequence of this discussion was that the surviving spouse was heir to her deceased husband’s estate before the joint heirs, who in turn had to wait for their inheritance until the surviving spouse also passed away. There is also other rules that work together with the surviving spouse’s right of inheritance to ensure that the surviving spouse can live a fulfilling life with the same economic standards. The right to marital property, the rule of a base amount and the joint will are all examples of rules that are there to even out the property relationship between spouses and thereby protect the surviving spouse. The rules of succession for the surviving spouse are gender neutral, but there are factors that indicate that it is mainly women who are in a great need of the rules of this kind and that it’s women that the legislature had in mind in the enactment of these rules. Statistically, women live longer than men and therefore more likely is the one who occupies the position as surviving spouse. Women have generally also worked less, been paid less and spent more time on unpaid domestic work than men. This leads to the social rights reprocessed through gainful employment will be lower for women, such as retirement, and that women generally have less wealth than men.