410 COMPARATIVE LAW 



he possessed or enjoyed he possessed or enjoyed by the license of the 

 house-head, not as of right. No question of succession to the property 

 of house-members could therefore arise at that time. But the Restor- 

 ation completely changed this state of things. It was one of the 

 policies of the new Imperial Government to appoint its officials not, 

 as before, on account of birth, but on account of personal merits, 

 no distinction whatever being made as to whether they were house- 

 heads or house-members. Formerly it was only the house-head that 

 could hold public office. During the first years of the Imperial Gov- 

 ernment, statesmen and soldiers who had served in the cause of the 

 Restoration were rewarded with life or perpetual annuities. But 

 many of them were not house-heads; some were "inkyo" or house- 

 members who had become such by abdicating house-headship; 

 others were younger members of houses. Now, these annuities and 

 the salaries of civil and military officials, being given by the state for 

 personal services or merits, could not be treated as house-property. Thus 

 began the independent and separate property of house-members, with 

 the first great blow which the old family system received at the 

 hand of the Imperial Government. It is interesting to note that this 

 is exactly what happened in the beginning of the Roman Empire, 

 when castrense peculium of filiusfamilias was recognized for military 

 services, and three centuries afterward quasi-castrense peculium for 

 civil services. 



The issue of a law in 1872 which abolished the prohibition of the 

 sale of land and granted title-deeds to landowners, the issue in 

 the following year of the government bonds for public loans, and the 

 establishment of joint-stock companies and savings-banks mark the 

 next step in the development of the separate property of house- 

 members. The courts of law began to recognize house-members' 

 separate property in the title-deeds, bonds, stocks, debentures, or 

 savings which they held in their own names, and thus individual pro- 

 perty began to grow up by the side of house-property. But on the other 

 hand, a law (no. 275) was passed in 1872 to the effect that the 

 house-head should not be liable for the debts contracted by house- 

 members, unless he became a surety to the contract. 



Although the separate property of house-members was thus 

 established, the rule of succession was not settled until the pro- 

 mulgation of the new Civil Code. As a rule the property left by 

 a deceased house-member went to the house-head. But here again 

 the Code took a decided step and gave the right of succession to the 

 nearest descendants equally, whether they were males or females or 

 whether they were in the same house with the deceased or not, the right 

 of representation being always given to the children of the pre- 

 deceased descendant. After descendants comes the consort; next in 

 order, the lineal ascendant; and as the last successor, the house-head. 



