This guest post is from Faith Lyons, Regent Law 3L
Property owners in America have the freedom of disposition which is a nearly unrestricted right to dispose of their property as they please.[1] As such, inheritance law mostly facilitates distribution, rather than regulation of how property is dispersed. One exception to a property owner’s freedom of disposition is that they cannot draft a will that disinherits their spouse.[2] If a property owner does not leave a will, the law of intestacy in most states demands that the property pass first to the person’s spouse, before their surviving children and relatives.[3] Further, in most states, a surviving spouse has the right to seek a designated share of the estate by filing a right of election.[4] It is evident from these principles, that inheritance law favors and seeks to protect surviving spouses.
These laws stem from biblical
principles surrounding marriage. In the beginning when God made all of creation,
everything was deemed “very good” except for man to be alone.[5] Thus,
God made a companion for man, and commanded that “man shall leave his father
and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”[6] God
intended spouses to be one undivided unit, essentially one inseparable flesh.[7] This
union was purposefully created to be a mutual submission to one another[8] in order
to “encourage one another and build one another up.”[9] But most
of all, biblical marriage was designed to protect the two persons.[10] American
law mirrors biblical principles in this way, to protect spouses in the event of
death. What a comforting idea it is that marriage is both a God ordained, and
state endorsed form of protection.
[1]
Shapira v. Union Nat’l Bank, 315
N.E.2d 825 (1974).
[2]
Empathy’s Estates Specialists, Can a Will Disinherit a Spouse?, Empathy, https://www.empathy.com/will/can-a-will-disinherit-a-spouse
(last visited Sept. 16, 2023).
[3]
See, e.g., Tex. Estate Code Ann.
§ 201.001.
[4]
See, e.g., Va. Code Ann. §
64.2-308.13.
[5]
Genesis 2:18.
[6]
Genesis 2:24.
[7]
Matthew 19:4-6.
[8]
Ephesians 5:21.
[9]
1 Thessalonians 5:11.
[10]
1 Corinthians 13:4-7.
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