배우자 상속권 강화를 위한 입법론 ― 상속에서의 약자 보호를 위한 管見 ―

Unless the child voluntarily supports, only the inherited property acquired by her husband’s death, except for property in her own name, can be relied on by her elderly as a practical means of livelihood. Nevertheless, the current inheritance system is very insufficient in supporting the support of surviving spouses, especially the elderly women. Therefore, this study sought ways to protect the elderly women who are economically weak by strengthening the inheritance rights of spouses. The main contents are summarized as follows. Recognition of liquidation, such as property division at divorce, even at the time of the death of a spouse is most desirable from the point of view of equal division. But unlike property division at divorce, clarity of legal relationship and legal stability should be emphasized, and amendments to inheritance laws in the direction of causing inheritance disputes among co-inheritances should be avoided as far as possible. Therefore, I suggest that to protect the elderly woman who is economically weak, the Civil code of spouse’s shares of statutory inheritance should be revised to obtain ‘two-thirds of inherited property’, whether a spouse inherited alone or jointly. This way is preferred in terms of conciseness of rule forms as well as legal stability.