BOYCOTTING THE BOURGEOIS INSTITUTION OF MARRIAGE, but demanding the bourgeois institution of wifely inheritance. Wait, you mean that “all property is theft” stuff only applies to other people’s property?
Gabrielsson and Larsson weren’t just a couple, but also a leftist action group. First they were Maoists and then Trotskyists, voicing their criticism of the Swedish welfare state from a leftist point of view. She was an architect, while he worked for a news agency. They managed to make ends meet, and had no children. Like many Swedes of their generation, they were anti-bourgeois.
In their social circle, while couples may have been monogamous, they didn’t marry. But under Swedish law, a member of an unmarried couple doesn’t inherit anything from his or her deceased partner, no matter how long the couple was together. Blood trumps love, unless a will exists, but Larsson hadn’t written one. For that reason, the rapidly growing proceeds from the sale of the books and the film rights went to two biological relatives, Larsson’s father Erland (his mother Vivianne is dead) and his younger brother Joakim. . . .
After Larsson’s death, when his novels suddenly became such a huge success, the widow who isn’t a widow under the law sat down with Erland and Joakim Larsson to discuss what should happen next. An agreement seemed possible. But then attorneys took over the case, and an inheritance war ensued — one in which the Stieg Larsson fan community has participated extensively.
Two camps have since formed in Sweden: the (primarily female) Eva camp, with its own website (www.supporteva.com), and the (primarily male) Larsson camp (www.moggliden.com).
Shocking, that division. Plus, this: “The inheritance dispute is being waged publicly. It culminated when Gabrielsson and Joakim Larsson went on Swedish television to explain their respective positions on the dispute. The widow, invoking a higher form of justice, said that the money had made the two Larssons greedy. Joakim Larsson defended his right to the inheritance and, in his modesty, came across as likeable.”
“A higher form of justice” translates as “give me the money regardless of the law.” “Greedy” means “you won’t give me what I want, just because it’s yours, not mine.”