ded as the normal condition. But with changes in society
and the rise of commercial and industrial activity, a change has been
taking place rapidly which is making individual ownership the normal
type in fact, if not in legal theory.

Self-acquired property, the second disintegrating agency, may be seen
in Hindu law and also in Roman law. In Hindu law all property is
normally and _prima facie_ household property. The burden is upon
anyone who claims to be the individual owner of anything. But an
exceptional class of property is recognized which is called
self-acquired property. Such property might be acquired by "valor,"
that is, by leaving the household and going into military service and
thus earning or acquiring by way of booty, or by "learning," that is,
by withdrawing from the household and devoting oneself to study and
thus acquiring through the gifts of the pious or the exercise of
knowledge. A third form was recognized later, namely, property
acquired through the use of self-acquired property. In the same way in
Roman law the son in the household, even if of full age, normally had
no property. Legally all property acquired by any member of the
household was the property of the head of the household as the legal
symbol and representative thereof. Later the head of the household
ceases to be thought of as symbolizing the household and the property
was regarded legally as his individual property. But Roman law
recognized certain kinds of property which sons in the household might
hold as their own. The first of these was property earned or acquired
by the son in military service. Later property earned in the service
of the state was added. Finally it came to be law that property
acquired otherwise than through use of the patrimony of the household
might be held by the son individually though he remained legally under
the power of the head.

In the two ways just explained, through partition and through the idea
of self-acquired property, individual interests in property came to be
recognized throughout the law. Except for the institution of community
property between husband and wife in civil-law countries, or as it is
called the matrimonial property regime, there is practically nothing
left of the old system of recognized group interests. And even this
remnant of household group ownership is dissolving. All legally
recognized interests of substance in developed legal systems are
normally individual interests. To