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Our series “The Science of Siblings” last year was immensely popular, tackling questions that many a sibling has pondered. How do you get siblings to be nicer to each other? Why is it that siblings may have weird traits in common? How do siblings remember — and make peace with — childhood traumas? There was one fascinating sibling story that we came upon after the series concluded — so here it is now!

As parents age, siblings may face tough decisions about who will take care of them if they become infirm or frail.

And then there’s the matter of how the estate will be divided up when parents die.

To say that disagreements crop up is perhaps an understatement.

This potential for family friction has given birth to various customs. In the past, the eldest son often got it all.That’s called primogeniture — although it’s no longer the way things typically play out today.

Who gets it all?

In a part of Pakistan there’s a very different approach to inheritance — and it’s still in force. The youngest child becomes the heir apparent.

As the oldest son in his family of two brothers and three sisters, Muhammad Ali always knew he would have to leave the family home in northwestern Pakistan when he came of age to seek his own fortune. That’s because in the mountainous and remote Chitral district, families follow an unusual practice called “chiro bash” — or junior right — in which the family home is left, in its entirety, to the youngest son.

To Western eyes this practice, also known as ultimogeniture, might seem upside down. For many centuries, parts of Western Europe followed the practice of primogeniture, which holds that the oldest son inherits the family farm or estate. While it might seem unfair, it guaranteed that a farm or estate remained intact, big enough to operate efficiently and support a family, rather than being endlessly subdivided generation after generation.

Chiro bash, too, has its own logic. It ensures that the youngest sibling remains in the home village, which guarantees that parents will have someone to care for them when they grow old and promotes family continuity. Anthropologist Ali Sher Khan notes that Chitrali parents typically help an older son build his own home or achieve financial independence. But in a region where large families of eight to nine children are common, a child born in the parents’ later years – a “zaru zheri” or “oldster kid” — might not get that same help in time.

Abdul Wahid Khan, the youngest son in his family, says the practice doesn’t mean kicking out older siblings prematurely; they often live with the family in the family home into adulthood, when they can establish their own households. But, he added, “It is more likely that the parents pass away or get too old before they help the youngest son with establishing his house.”

Although ultimogeniture is far less common than primogeniture, it has been practiced in parts of northern Myanmar and southwestern China and elsewhere for centuries. The Mongol Empire embraced one form of the practice; Genghis Khan left the core of his empire to his youngest son. In the Chitral region, the practice might date to the seventh century, when the region fell under the influence of the Chinese state of Kashgar. Muhammad Irfan, a prominent historian from Chitral, says Kashgar left the region with lasting traditions governing hunting rights, water distribution and familial decision-making.

Fair or unfair?

For his part, Muhammad Ali thinks the practice is fair, even though it meant his youngest brother would inherit the family home. “I view it as a blessing in disguise,” he said. “Lacking the resources to build a house, I relocated to Karachi, renting a modest apartment and establishing a small business.” He said life in Karachi, with his business operating a snack shop, means that his own son has access to better education and a brighter future than he would have had in the home village.

And, he added, his own family still travels regularly to Chitral and stays with his brother in the ancestral home. While their father passed away a few years ago, their mother still lives there with the youngest brother, his wife and their five children.

Still, chiro bash can cause friction. In some families, the youngest son may resent carrying the main burden of caring for parents. Older siblings may feel cheated. Journalist Karim Ullah recalls how his father’s younger brother inherited both the family house and an ancestral orchard. His father had to build a new house and start a new orchard from scratch, waiting years for the trees to bear fruit.

Challenging chiro bash remains rare, said Chitral attorney Zafar Hayat, an expert in family law. When disputes arise, they often come from women in the family who turn to Islamic law, which prescribes dividing estates among siblings.

Karim Ullah’s mother is one such example. She was deeply troubled by the expectation that she and her husband would have to move out of the home they shared with her husband’s brother and his growing family because there wasn’t room for everyone. Now she plans to leave property equally to her sons, breaking with local tradition.

Because chiro bash exists outside formal law, there are no official records of how common it is, historians say. Muhammad Irfan predicts the practice may not endure much longer as Shariah-based inheritance laws increasingly take precedence.

But cultural shifts are exerting just as much pressure. More and more of Chitral’s young adults leave to get an education and work in cities or abroad, meaning inheritance today is shaped less by custom than by new aspirations.

Chiro bash endured for centuries because it served a purpose: guaranteeing the parents would be cared for and keeping families rooted in place. Now, with both formal law and modern life pulling in other directions, its survival looks uncertain. The question may no longer be who inherits the house but whether the values behind the custom can endure.

Benazir Samad is a Washington, D.C.–based journalist. She is on X at @benazirmirsamad.