Adapting Inheritance Law to Changing Social Realities: Questions of Methodology from a Comparative Perspective
Keywords:
Inheritance law, family, comparative law, law reform, law and social science, transdisciplinarity, Derecho de sucesiones, familia, derecho comparado, reforma legislativa, derecho y ciencias sociales, transdisciplinariedad,Abstract
This article discusses examples of inheritance law reform in different countries all dealing with the current transformations of family structures. The first part analyses discussions in US and English law on the intestate share of spouses in second or subsequent marriages in relation to the share of the children of the deceased. The second part summarises the author’s own suggestions for the reform of Swiss inheritance law having regard to empirical social science literature on changing family realities. The examples from the three legal systems reveal that, although the relationship between the “Is” and the “Ought” is fundamentally different depending on the legal tradition, in both the Anglo-American and the continental European context the use of social science knowledge in inheritance law reform is currently predominantly based on a model of social science as a mere adjunct of legal studies. The author argues in the third part of the article that, especially for the complex situation of blended families, genuine transdisciplinary research could be a promising means of developing innovative solutions for inheritance law reform.
Este artículo analiza ejemplos de reformas de la legislación sobre sucesiones en países que tienen en cuenta las transformaciones actuales de las estructuras familiares. La primera parte analiza los debates en el ámbito de la legislación en casos de intestados en Estados Unidos e Inglaterra, sobre la porción correspondiente a las esposas en segundas nupcias o posteriores, en relación a la porción de los hijos del fallecido. La segunda parte recoge las sugerencias de la autora para reformar la ley de sucesiones en Suiza, teniendo en cuenta la literatura empírica de ciencias sociales que trata las realidades cambiantes de la familia. Los ejemplos de los tres sistemas jurídicos ponen de manifiesto que, aunque la relación entre lo que "es" y lo que "deber ser" es fundamentalmente diferente en función de la tradición jurídica, en el contexto angloamericano y en el europeo continental, el conocimiento de las ciencias sociales se usa básicamente como una mera herramienta auxiliar de los estudios jurídicos, a la hora de reformar la legislación sobre sucesiones.
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