FALCIDIAN LAW

A statute or law enacted by the people during the reign of Augustus on the proposition of Falcidius, who was a tribune in the year of Rome 714.

Its principal provision gave power to fathers of families to bequeath three-fourths of their property, but deprived them of the power to give away the other fourth, which was to descend to the heir.

The same rule, somewhat modified, had been adopted in Louisiana; "donations inter vivos or mortis causal cannot exceed two-thirds of the property of, the disposer, if he leaves at his decease a legitimate child; one-half if he leaves two children; and one-third if he leaves three or a greater number."

By the common law, the power of the father to give his property is unlimited. He may bequeath it to his children equally, to one in preference to another, or to a stranger in exclusion of the whole of them. Over his real estate, his wife has a right of dower or a similar right given to her by act of assembly, in perhaps all the states.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.