Inheritance of Titles
Their title differed from the higher noblemen's titles in that it was inherited by all the zeman's children equally in each generation. Their ratio in society therefore did not decline as the population grew. A male zeman's children, sons as well as daughters, were all born zemans regardless of the status of their mother (when a female commoner married a zeman, her status was effectively raised). A female zemianka who married a commoner retained her noble status for the rest of her life, but it did not transfer to her husband and her children were born commoners.
Read more about this topic: Zeman (nobleman)
Famous quotes containing the words inheritance of, inheritance and/or titles:
“Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and races of men are always existing in epitome in every neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and races of men are always existing in epitome in every neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us, or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy, or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)