1216–9803/$ 20.00 © 2013 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 58 (1), pp. 107–122 (2013) DOI: 10.1556/AEthn.58.2013.1.8 CARING FOR T[]E INHERITANCE: ELDERLY CARE, INHERITANCE RIGHTS, AND SUBJECTIVE TENSION IN A VILLAGE FROM NORTHERN DOBRUJA 1 Mihai POPA Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology Advokatenweg 36, 06114, Halle/Saale, Germany E-mail: popa@eth.mpg.de The linking of patterns of inheritance with patterns of domestic organization is a matter not simply of numbers and formations but of attitudes and emotions. The manner of split- ting property is a manner of splitting people; it creates (or in some cases reflects) a par- ticular constellation of ties and cleavages between husband and wife, parents and children, sibling and sibling, as well as between wider kin. (GOODY 1979a[1976]:3) They all want the house, but who is going to care for me? (82 year-old mother of four) Abstract: In this paper I show how inheritance is exchanged for old age care in a village from Northern Dobruja, Romania. The elderly have to insure their old age care while managing relations with their children who are not always able to provide care. In Romania internal and international migration has made future prospects of care in the family uncertain. While according to the regulations of the Civil Code the children are the almost certain beneficiaries of their parents’ property, local arrangements for inter vivos transfers can subvert these regulations and work according to an alternative principle justify- ing inheritance other than legal filiation, namely care. By discussing one complex case I show how the tensions associated with inheritance and care obligations can illustrate more generally subjective experi- ences of old age in present-day rural Romania. Keywords: care, inheritance, old age security, subjectivity, kinship, Northern Dobruja, Romania 1 The research on which this analysis is based would not have been possible without the generous support from the Volkswagen Foundation, through a grant within the framework of the comparative research project ‘Local State and Social Security in Rural Hungary, Romania and Serbia’. Research has also been made possible through the generous support provided by the Max Planck Society. The author is indebted to Keebet von Ben- da-Beckmann, Franz von Benda-Beckmann, and Tatjana Thelen for their intellectual support and for construc- tive criticism on an early version of this paper. The author also acknowledges the helpful comments that have helped improve this paper by Viorel Anăstăsoaie, Severin Lenart, André Thiemann, and an anonymous reader of Acta Ethnographica Hungarica. All the remaining shortcomings are the author’s responsibility alone.