We have become hopelessly addicted to the PBS Masterpiece drama "Downton Abbey." It is not Dickens or Austen, but it isn't "Dallas" or "90210," either. The story centers on an English manor house, Downton Abbey, and the people who live there. The show may have its critics -- including a friend of ours who cannot bear the inaccuracies of the World War I scenes -- but it does offer an interesting lesson in inheritance.

To get started, let's think about Vizcaya right here in Miami. The estate -- the house and outbuildings, the farm and everything else -- covered 180 acres on both sides of Miami Avenue in its heyday. Imagine that this house had been built centuries before, and the same family, the Deerings, had owned the place since then.

Generation after generation, the estate passed from eldest Deering son to eldest Deering son. To keep the estate together -- because land was power, way back when -- only the eldest sons inherited. Younger sons were given a stipend and had to make their own way, often in the army or the clergy; if the eldest were to die, the second son would take his place as heir.

Any daughters (with very few exceptions) were not included in the lines of succession. They were married off, after their father or brother had negotiated a reasonable dowry that would satisfy the groom-to-be. The greater the estate, the more eligible the daughter.

Not only did this not happen at Vizcaya, it could not have happened in Florida. The laws of inheritance prohibit that generation to generation to generation estate plan.

How? Well, we'll explain in our next post.

Source: Vizcaya Museum & Gardens website, accessed Jan. 25, 2012