By Justinian's day the system had evolved as follows: descendants had the first claim, and failing these heirs, came a composite class consisting of ascendants, brothers and sisters of full blood, and children of deceased brothers and sisters.
The indisposable share is one-half of the property if the disposer, having no children, leaves ascendants of both his father's and his mother's lines and three-quarters if he leaves ascendants in only one line.
In the late Roman Empire the descendants and if there were no descendants, the ascendants (e.g., parents)—were given the right to a share in the estate (pars legitima), of which none of them could be deprived except upon serious cause stated in the will.
The survivor inherits half of the estate if there are no children and if there are surviving ascendants on only one side of the deceased's family.
Freedom of testation, furthermore, was not complete: a man was obliged to leave a certain proportion of his property to his children and in some cases to ascendants and brothers and sisters.
In civil law someone who dies leaving a spouse or close kin (descendants or ascendants) may effectively dispose of only a portion of his estate by will.
For each group in "A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters I-XVIII," on view at the Museum of Modern Art beginning in May, Simon photographed living ascendants and descendants of a single person or animal.
Especially in a small state, the most natural ascendants to the Senate are members of the United States House of Representatives.
In the latter, the Colombian parents of children born in Belgium and so Belgian citizens could not be deprived of rights to remain or work in Belgium, given their status as ascendants of EU citizens.
Simon photographed the living ascendants and descendants of a single person or animal, juxtaposing these portraits with relevant public records and historical documents.
