curtesy
n.
husband's right to inherit his wife's property after her death
Curtesy
This article is about the legal concept of curtesy. For the concept of courtesy, please see the article on
etiquette.Note that the content of this article, taken from a 1911 encyclopedia, is probably now out-of-date and largely of historical interest due to changes in the law.Curtesy, in
law, is the life interest which a husband has in certain events in the lands of which his wife was in her lifetime actually
seised for an
estate of
inheritance.The customs and the meaning of the word has considerable doubt. It has been said to be an interest peculiar to
England and to
Scotland, hence called the curtesy of England and the curtesy of Scotland; but this is erroneous, for it is found also in
Germany and
France. The Mirroir des Justices ascribes it to Henry I. K. E. Digby, that it is connected with
curia, and has reference either to the attendance of the husband as tenant of the lands at the
lord's court, or to mean simply that the husband is acknowledged tenant by the courts of England.
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Curtesy
(n.)
the life estate which a husband has in the lands of his deceased wife, which by the common law takes effect where he has had issue by her, born alive, and capable of inheriting the lands.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913), edited by Noah Porter.
About
Curtesy
Curtesy: widower's right to an interest in his deceased wife's real property. - (
read more on Curtesy)
Curtesy, Courtesy
CURTSEY (DOWER) - The law of some states provides that if a married person dies, their spouse gets the right to use any real estate they owned (or in some cases some fraction, usually 1/3) during their life. Some states provide that if a married person ever owned real estate, even when they sell it, their spouse retains the right to use it after their death.
CURTESY, or COURTESY - Scotch Law. A life-rent given by law to the surviving husband, of all his wife's heritage of which she died infeft, if there was a child of the marriage born alive. The child born of the marriage must be the mother's heir. If she had a child by a former marriage who is to succeed to her estate, the husband has no right to the curtesy while such child is alive; so that the curtesy is due to the husband rather as father to the heir, than as hushand to an heiress, conformable to the Roman law which gives to the father the usufruct of what the child succeeds to by the mother.
This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.
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