Of course only the family property can be divided, and if any of the members make a claim on the ground of self-acquisition to exclude anything from partition, this claim must be considered; and if it is upheld, that portion of the property must be excluded from partition. These claims sometimes give rise to a good deal of litigation, and are not always easy to determine. It must be borne in mind, however, that self-acquired property becomes family property as soon as it has once descended. Thus if a man by a separate trade earns Rs.10,000, and dies leaving two sons and the son of a third son, these persons form a joint family, and the Rs.10,000 is family property. So also family property which has been partitioned remains family property still. Thus if A, a bachelor, gets on partition a piece of land and afterwards marries and has sons, under the Mitacshara law the father and sons form a joint family as soon as the sons are born, and to this family the land belongs. Inheritance. When we come to deal with the question of what shares are taken on partition, it is convenient to follow the example of the Hindu commentators, and to treat the subject of inheritance in conjunction with it. The relative importance of these two subjects has not always been perceived, particularly by the early English writers on Hindu law. H. T. Colebrooke, the learned and accomplished translator of the Mitacshara and the Dayabhaga, published the two treatises together in one volume which he called _The Law of Inheritance_. But these treatises, although they deal incidentally with inheritance, are both described by their authors as treatises on partition only; and this, no doubt, is because the subject of inheritance, apart from partition, is of comparatively small importance. Inheritance is the transfer of ownership which occurs at and in consequence of a death. It follows from this that in a Mitacshara joint family there is no inheritance. The death of a member of the family makes no change in the ownership; not any more than the death, of a fellow in the ownership of a college, or of a shareholder in the ownership of a railway company. In a Dayabhaga family there is a case of inheritance whenever a member dies. The share of that member descends to his heir. But here, again, no perceptible change in the affairs of the family is occasioned thereby. The enjoyment of the family property is no more affected thereby than by a death in a Mitacshara family. It is only when a partition takes place that the devolution of the shares by inheritance has to be traced. Inheritance, therefore, apart from partition, has not to be considered when we are dealing with family property under either system.