| Abstract: | In 1912 Emile Durkheim predicted that testators would shift their beneficiaries in their last wills from their families to organizations as societies industrialized, primarily because the family would decline as an economic institution. This article analyzes and expands Durkheim's prediction into a “Durkheimian’ theory of organizational inheritance. The 429 last wills filed in the probate court of Providence, Rhode Island, from 1775–1985 are content analyzed in order to test Durkheim's prediction and to determine if other fundamental changes have occurred in testamentary behaviors. Contrary to Durkheim's prediction, families and kin remain as the beneficiaries in more than 90 percent of the sole beneficiary wills and in more than 80 percent of the combined beneficiary wills. Spouses, children, and grandchildren remain as the most frequent beneficiaries. Although many other types of beneficiaries besides family members and voluntary associations were named by testators in 1985, these other types accounted for a relatively small percentage of the beneficiaries. Other factors are suggested that could bring about widespread organizational inheritance during the next twenty years. The family was in the past better suited to ensure the continuity of economic life as well, because it was a small group in direct touch with things and people and also itself endowed with a genuine continuity. To-day this continuity no longer exists. The family is all the time in process of breaking up; it lasts only for a period and it may die out here and there. It no longer has sufficient power to link the generations one to another, in the economic sense. But only a secondary, fairly small medium can be a substitute. This can and should have greater scope than the family because the economic interests themselves have grown. It is not possible for any central organ to be everywhere present and everywhere active at the same moment. All these points, then persuade us in favour of the professional groups. -Emile Durkheim |
