The effects of partible inheritance: gentry families and the state in Muscovy

Political thinkers in the 18th century were preoccupied with replacing the rules of primogeniture with a more democratic system called equal partition. The Muscovite nobility had been advocating partible inheritance long before it was instituted in the US. However, instead of promoting democracy and fostering a viable republican egalitarianism, partible inheritance flourished accordingly with autocracy. The absence of primogeniture sealed the subservience of the nobility to the tsar.