MARCKX v. BELGIUM JUDGMENT 20 intimately connected with family life. Family life does not include only social, moral or cultural relations, for example in the sphere of children’s education; it also comprises interests of a material kind, as is shown by, amongst other things, the obligations in respect of maintenance and the position occupied in the domestic legal systems of the majority of the Contracting States by the institution of the reserved portion of an estate (réserve héréditaire). Whilst inheritance rights are not normally exercised until the estate-owner’s death, that is at a time when family life undergoes a change or even comes to an end, this does not mean that no issue concerning such rights may arise before the death: the distribution of the estate may be settled, and in practice fairly often is settled, by the making of a will or of a gift on account of a future inheritance (avance d’hoirie); it therefore represents a feature of family life that cannot be disregarded. 53. Nevertheless, it is not a requirement of Article 8 (art. 8) that a child should be entitled to some share in the estates of his parents or even of other near relatives: in the matter of patrimonial rights also, Article 8 (art. 8) in principle leaves to the Contracting States the choice of the means calculated to allow everyone to lead a normal family life (see paragraph 31 above) and such an entitlement is not indispensable in the pursuit of a normal family life. In consequence, the restrictions which the Belgian Civil Code places on Alexandra Marckx’s inheritance rights on intestacy are not of themselves in conflict with the Convention, that is, if they are considered independently of the reason underlying them. Similar reasoning is to be applied to the question of voluntary dispositions. 54. On the other hand, the distinction made in these two respects between "illegitimate" and "legitimate" children does raise an issue under Articles 14 and 8 (art. 14+8) when they are taken in conjunction. 55. Until she was adopted (30 October 1974), Alexandra had only a capacity to receive property from Paula Marckx (see paragraph 49 above) that was markedly less than that which a child born in wedlock would have enjoyed. The Court considers that this difference of treatment, in support of which the Government put forward no special argument, lacks objective and reasonable justification; reference is made, mutatis mutandis, to paragraphs 40 and 41 above. However, the Government plead that since 30 October 1974 the second applicant has had, vis-à-vis the first applicant, the patrimonial rights of a "legitimate" child; they therefore consider it superfluous to deal with the earlier period. This argument represents, in essence, no more than one branch of the preliminary plea that has already been set aside (see paragraphs 26 and 27 above). Moreover, in common with the Commission, the Court finds that the need to have recourse to adoption in order to eliminate the said difference of treatment involves of itself discrimination. As the applicants emphasised, the procedure employed for this purpose in the present case is