Birthright is the concept of things being due to a person upon or by fact of their birth, or due to the order of their birth. These may include rights of citizenship based on the place where the person was born or the citizenship of their parents, and inheritance rights to property owned by parents or others.
The concept of a birthright is ancient, and is often defined in part with concepts of both patriarchy and birth order. For example, "[t]hroughout the Bible the concept of a birthright is absolutely intertwined with the firstborn. That is, the firstborn inherits the birthright and has expectations of primogeniture", which historically referred to the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn legitimate child to inherit the parent's entire or main estate in preference to shared inheritance among all or some children, any illegitimate child or any collateral relative. In the seventeenth century, English activist John Lilburne used the term with respect to the rights of Englishmen "to connote all that is due to a citizen" of England, which "is claimed from English law to higher authorities". The term was similarly popularized in India by self-rule advocate Bal Gangadhar Tilak in the 1890s, when Tilak adopted the slogan coined by his associate Kaka Baptista: "Swaraj (self-rule) is my birthright and I shall have it." The term then "attained the status of a political slogan".
