Adaptive responses in inheritance practices: sex ratio imbalance drives higher investments in daughters and cultural changes to benefit women

Debra Judge, University of Western Australia

Families are composed of individuals with imperfectly overlapping self interests. Differential mortality, differences in reproductive life spans, and different access to opportunity beyond the family result in strategic differences in allocation of resources among members. Using heterochronic analyses of allocations to women in Massachusetts and California, I argue that declines in sex ratio and fertility can force families to change allocation preferences and drive cultural changes beneficial to women. Low sex ratios and economic opportunities for women enabled married women to control property in 19th century California. Reduced surviving offspring in 18th century Massachusetts meant more families had only female heirs who could not hold property after marriage. Married women’s property acts and greater allocation by parents coincided with son depletion. Multivariate analyses of 412 Massachusetts, and 1800 Californian, testaments yield a model wherein family lineage considerations under low sex ratio conditions drive cultural change and promote further demographic change.