Why could daughters not inherit land under the Salic Law?

The Salic Law, a code of the Salian Franks issued in the early 6th century, included a provision stating that daughters could not inherit land.1

This rule was rooted in the structure of early Germanic society, where property was closely tied to the extended family or clan (sippe). In this system, land was originally held collectively by the family, and succession was designed to keep property within the patrilineal line. Because women typically passed into the guardianship (mund) of their husbands upon marriage, excluding them from land inheritance served as a mechanism to prevent family property from being transferred to a different clan or household.2

While this provision was a specific civil-law enactment in the original Frankish code, it was later famously—though incorrectly—cited by 16th-century French lawyers as a legal justification for excluding women and their descendants from succeeding to the French throne.12