Dower is a provision accorded traditionally by a husband or his family, to a wife for her support should she become widowed. It was settled on the bride (being given into trust) by agreement at the time of the wedding, or as provided by law.
The dower grew out of the practice of bride price, which was given over to a bride's family well in advance for arranging the marriage, but during the early Middle Ages, was given directly to the bride instead. However, in popular parlance, the term may be used for a life interest in property settled by a husband on his wife at any time, not just at the wedding. The verb to dower is sometimes used.
In popular usage, the term dower may be confused with: A dowager is a widow (who may receive her dower). The term is especially used of a noble or royal widow who no longer occupies the position she held during the marriage. For example, Queen Elizabeth was technically the dowager queen after the death of George VI (though she was referred to by the more informal title "queen mother"), and Princess Lilian was the Dowager Duchess of Halland in heraldic parlance. Such a dowager will receive the income from her dower property. (The term "Empress Dowager", in Chinese history, has a different meaning.) Property brought to the marriage by the bride is called a dowry. But the word dower has been used since Chaucer (The Clerk's Tale) in the sense of dowry, and is recognized as a definition of dower in the Oxford English Dictionary. Property made over to the bride's family at the time of the wedding is a bride price. This property does not pass to the bride herself.
Meaning Of Dower Being for the wife/spouse and being accorded by law, dower differs essentially from a conventional marriage portion such as the English dowry (cf. Roman dos, Byzantine proíx, Italian dote, French dot, Dutch bruidsschat, German Mitgift).
The bride received a right to certain property from the bridegroom or his family. It was intended to ensure her livelihood in widowhood, and it was to be kept separate and in the wife's possession.
Dower is the gift given by the groom to the bride, customarily on the morning after the wedding, though all dowerings from the man to his fiancée, either during the betrothal period, or wedding, during marriage or afterwards, even as late as in the testamentary dowering, are understood as dowers if specifically intended for the maintenance of the wife.
Dower was a property arrangement for marriage first used in early medieval German cultures, and the Catholic Church drove its adoption into other countries, in order to improve the wife's security by this additional benefit. The practice of dower was prevalent in those parts of Europe influenced by Germanic Scandinavian culture, such as Sweden, Germany, Normandy and successor states of the Langobardian kingdom.
The husband was legally prevented from using the wife's dower — as contrasted with her dowry, which was brought to the marriage by the bride and used by both spouses. This often meant that the woman's legal representative, usually a male relative, became guardian or executor of the dower, to ensure that it was not squandered.
Usually, the wife was free from kin limitations to use (and bequeath) her dower to whatever and whomever she pleased. It may have become the property of her next marriage, been given to an ecclesiastical institution, or been inherited by her children from other relationships than that from which she received it.
Types In English legal history, there were originally five kinds of dower:William Blackstone (2009), The Commentaries of Sir William Blackstone, Knight, on the Laws, Constitution of England; ; pages 105–111
Dower ad ostium ecclesiae, was the closest to modern meaning of dower. It was the property secured by law, in bride's name at the church porch (where marriages used to take place). This was optional. Dower was not the same as bride price; rather, it was legal assignment of movable or fixed property that became the bride's property. Dower de la plus belle was a hereditary conveyance of tenure by knight service. It was abolished in 1660, by the act which did away with old tenures. Dower ex assensu patris, was the dower given to the bride by the father of the bridegroom. This became obsolete long before it was formally abolished (in the United Kingdom, for example, by the Dower Act 1834). At common law, dower was of a very different nature. It was a legal declaration of a wife's right to property, while the husband lived, which he would manage; which would transfer to the wife's children when they were born; and which would secure her livelihood were she widowed. A dower at common law was not liable for the husband's debts — which became controversial after many tried to use it to shield their property from the collection of debts. The Dower Acts of 19th century abolished this. Dower by custom was an attempt to recognize the rules of dower customary at each manor and in each region. Customary dowers were also abolished in the 19th century, and replaced with uniform inheritance laws.
History
Roman era Dower is thought to have been suggested by the bride price which Tacitus found to be usual among the Germans. This bride price he terms dos, but contrasts it with the dos (dowry) of the Roman law, which was a gift on the part of the wife to the husband, while in Germany the gift was made by the husband to the wife.Larousse, Grand dictionnaire universel, Paris, 1870, s.v. Douaire There was indeed in the Roman law what was termed donatio propter nuptias, a gift from the family of the husband, but this was only required if the dos were brought on the part of the wife. So too in the special instance of a widow (herself poor and undowried) of a husband rich at the time of his death, an ordinance of the Christian Emperor Justinian secured her the right to a part of her husband's property, of which no disposition of his could deprive her.
Establishment in Western Europe
Dower payments evolved from the Germanic custom of paying a bride price, which over centuries morphed into the bride gift. After the introduction of Christianity, the custom of dower persisted as a method of exacting from the husband at marriage a promise to endow his wife, a promise retained in form even now in the marriage ritual of the Established Church in England.See Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, II, 134, note p. Dower is mentioned in an ordinance of King Philip Augustus of France (1214), and in the almost contemporaneous Magna Carta (1215); but it seems to have already become customary law in Normandy, Sicily, and Naples, as well as in England. The object of both ordinance and charter was to regulate the amount of the dower where this was not the subject of voluntary arrangement, dower by English law consisting of a wife's life estate in one-third of the lands of the husband "of which any issue which she might have had might by possibility have been heir".Blackstone, op. cit., 131
England and other common law countries There is judicial authority of the year 1310 for the proposition that dower was favoured by law,Year Books of Edward II, London, 1905, Vol. III, 189 and at a less remote period it was said to be with life and liberty one of three things which "the law favoreth". In England in the late 18th century, it became common for men to hold land with a trust that prevented their wives' acquiring dower. Accordingly, the English statute, the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833 was passed to impair the inviolability of dower by empowering husbands to cut off by deed or will their wives from dower. Wives married before the Act still had (in certain cases) to acknowledge the deed before a commissioner to bar their right to dower in property which their husband sold. This was simpler than the previous procedure, which had required a fine to be levied in the Court of Common Pleas, a fictitious proceeding, by which she and her husband formally remitted their right to the property to the purchaser.
In English law, dower was one third of the lands seised in fee by the husband during the marriage. However, in the early modern period, it was common for a wife to bar her right to dower in advance under a marriage settlement, under which she agreed to take instead a jointure, that is a particular interest in her husband's property, either a particular share, or a life interest in a particular part of the land, or an annuity. This was often part of an arrangement by which she gave up her property to her husband in exchange for her jointure, which would accordingly be greater than a third. Strictly dower was only available from land that her husband owned, but a life tenant under a settlement was often given power to appoint a jointure for his wife. The wife would retain her right to dower (if not barred by a settlement) even if her husband sold the property; however this right could also be barred by a fictitious court proceeding known as levying a fine. The widow of a copyholder was usually provided for by the custom of the manor with freebench, an equivalent right to dower, but often (but not necessarily) a half, rather than a third.
Quebec As of 1913, the law in Quebec recognized a customary dower for widows, a holdover from old French law. This dower could be forfeited by women who took perpetual vows in certain religious orders.
Scotland Under Scots law, the part of the estate that cannot be denied to a surviving wife is referred to as jus relictae.
United States It was the law of dower unimpaired by statute which, according to the American commentator Chancellor Kent, has been "with some modifications everywhere adopted as part of the municipal jurisprudence of the United States".Commentaries on American Law, IV, 36 In American law, a widow's dower estate has phases: inchoate dower while the husband is still alive (wives co-sign their husbands' deeds for land in order to release their inchoate dower rights), unassigned dower after his death and before a dower lot is assigned to her, assigned (and if necessary admeasured) dower once the lot is determined. Then she can live on the dower lot or get its usufruct ("fruits" like actual fruit or animals grown there, and any rental income from her share), during her life. She can sell her unassigned or assigned dower rights, but could not sell them while they were still inchoate before her husband's death. Her dower lot is assigned to her by the husband's heirs who inherit the land, and it should be one-third of the husband's real property (by value, not by land area). If the widow disputes it, she or the heirs may file an action in court for admeasurement of dower and the court will determine and assign a dower lot to the widow. See Scribner on Dower.Charles H. Scribner, A Treatise on the Law of Dower, in Two Volumes, T. & J. W. Johnson & Co., Philadelphia (1867, 2nd Ed. 1883). https://archive.org/stream/cu31924018800619/cu31924018800619_djvu.txt A widow's dower and widower's curtesy rights have been abolished by statute in most American states and territories, most recently in Michigan in 2016.State of Michigan, Public Act 489 of 2016. Dower was never "received" into Louisianan law, its civil code being based mainly on French law. In Arkansas,Arkansas Code, §§ 28-11-305, 28-11-307 and 18-12-402. Kentucky,Kentucky Revised Statutes, § 381.135. OhioOhio Revised Code §2103.02. and the Territory of Palmyra Island,Dower, § 319-1, Revised Laws of Hawaii 1955, Filmer Bros. Press, San Francisco, (1955–1959); non-repeal: Hawaii Admission Act, PL86-3, §§ 2 and 15 (1959). a widow's dower remains a valid estate in land—modified and augmented in Arkansas and Kentucky with other protections for surviving spouses like elective share and community property.
Relationship to religious profession