In 1824 Eduard Gans, in the course of a study of inheritance law, had occasion to deal with the class of women known in Athens as epikleroi—daughters of a deceased man who, in the absence of sons, were married to their nearest relative, with the estate of the deceased passing to the son or sons of the new union. ‘For these,’ he wrote, ‘… the basic concept throughout is not that, in the absence of descendants, they themselves appear as inheritors, (...) but rather that they are inherited along with the property by the collaterals.’. (shrink)