News From Gallifrey starts with a pleasant setting just for the sake of it. I just thought that breakfast in the south of France, consisting of croissants and ham and cheese omelettes and lots of coffee would be a nice scene. It’s certainly a nice breakfast.

The main point of the story, though, is the news that Idell has left Remonte and thrown open the whole question of the right of primogeniture in Gallifreyan society.

As presented in my stories, it is a cruel system for second born sons, certainly. They stand to inherit nothing of their family’s fortune. They have to stand or fall by their own merits.

It is not an unusual idea. It came into fashion in rural Ireland in the late nineteenth century when tenant farming gave way to small proprietary farming. The famine had taught a tragic lesson that subdividing land among progeny led after a very few generations to unviable small parcels of land. In an increasingly property and money driven society the first born would inherit the farm. The second or third son would have to make his own way. Those who could afford it would try to ensure one younger child joined the priesthood. Teaching was another job for the brightest. Girls, of course, were married off. If they were lucky, it would be to a first born son with land to inherit.

And the de Lœngbærrow family of Southern Gallifrey are a classic example of the same principle. Kristoph is heir. Remonte is the second son with his own way to make. His tragedy, of course, is that he was born to parents who believed his older brother was dead. He was meant to take his place. But then his brother turned up alive. Even so, he has been acting as the heir, looking after the property and running the family business, while his brother has been away from home. It’s not entirely fair and Remonte has reason enough to be bitter. But it is his wife who is the one who resents Kristoph, and more so, Marion’s place in the equation.

http://family.jrank.org/pages/1333/Primogeniture.html