This article is about the legal doctrine of curtesy. For the concept of courtesy, please see the article on etiquette

Etiquette

Etiquette is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group...

.

Note that the content of this article, taken from a 1911 encyclopedia, is probably now out-of-date and largely of historical interest due to changes in the law.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 tenure is the legal term denoting the life interest which a widower (i.e. former husband) may claim in the lands of his deceased wife, under certain conditions. The tenure relates only to those lands of which his wife was in her lifetime actually seised

Seisin

Seisin is the term denoting the legal possession of a feudal fiefdom . It was used in the form of "the son and heir of X has obtained seisin of his inheritance", and thus is effectively a term concerned with conveyancing in the feudal era...

 (or sasine

Sasine

Sasine is the delivery of feudal property, typically land.Feudal property means immovable property, and includes everything that naturally goes with the property. For land, that would include such things as buildings, trees, and underground minerals...

d in Scots law) and not therefore to an estate

Estate (law)

An estate is the net worth of a person at any point in time. It is the sum of a person's assets - legal rights, interests and entitlements to property of any kind - less all liabilities at that time. The issue is of special legal significance on a question of bankruptcy and death of the person...

 of inheritance

Inheritance

Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...

.

The customs and the meaning of the word has considerable doubt. It has been said to be a tenure peculiar to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and to Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, hence called the curtesy of England and the curtesy of Scotland, yet this is erroneous, for it is found also in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

. The Mirroir des Justices ascribes its introduction to King Henry I

Henry I of England

Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

(1100–1135). The historian K.E. Digby states it to be connected with curia

Curia

A curia in early Roman times was a subdivision of the people, i.e. more or less a tribe, and with a metonymy it came to mean also the meeting place where the tribe discussed its affairs...

, having reference either to the attendance of the husband as tenant of the lands at the lord's

Lord

Lord is a title with various meanings. It can denote a prince or a feudal superior . The title today is mostly used in connection with the peerage of the United Kingdom or its predecessor countries, although some users of the title do not themselves hold peerages, and use it 'by courtesy'...

 court

Court

A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...

, or to mean simply that the husband is acknowledged tenant by the courts of England.

The requisites necessary to create a tenancy by curtesy are:

• A legal marriage
  Marriage
  Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
  
   must have existed;
• The estate claimed in curtesy must have been an estate in possession of which the wife must have been actually seised; and,
• Issue must have existed born alive and during the mother's existence, though it is immaterial whether the issue subsequently live or die, or whether it is born before or after the wife's seisin.

In the case of lands held under gavelkind tenure

Gavelkind

Gavelkind was a system of land tenure associated chiefly with the county of Kent, but found also in other parts of England. Its inheritance pattern bears resemblance to Salic patrimony and as such might testify in favour of a wider, probably ancient Germanic tradition.It was legally abolished in...

 the husband has a right to curtesy tenure whether there is issue born or not but the curtesy extends only to a moiety

Moiety title

Moiety title is legal term describing a portion other than a whole of ownership of property. The word derives from Old French moitié meaning "half" , from Latin medietas "middle", from medius....

 (i.e. half) of the wife's lands and ceases if the husband marries again. The issue must have been capable of inheriting as heir to the wife, so that if for example a wife were seised of lands in tail male

Entail

Entail may refer to:* Fee tail, a term of art in common law describing a limited form of succession....

 the birth of a daughter would not entitle the husband to a tenancy by curtesy.

• The title to the tenancy vests only on the death of the wife.

The Married Women's Property Act 1882

Married Women's Property Act 1882

The Married Women's Property Act 1882 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that significantly altered English law regarding the property rights granted to married women, allowing them to own and control their own property....

 has not affected the right of curtesy so far as relates to the wife's undisposed-of realty, and the Settled Land Act 1884

Settled land acts

The Settled Land Acts were a series of English land law enactments concerning the limits of creating a "settlement". A settlement is a conveyancing device used by a property owner who wants to ensure that future generations of his family are provided for....

, section 8, provides that for the purposes of the Settled Land Act 1882

Settled land acts

The Settled Land Acts were a series of English land law enactments concerning the limits of creating a "settlement". A settlement is a conveyancing device used by a property owner who wants to ensure that future generations of his family are provided for....

 the estate of a tenant

Tenement (law)

A tenement , in law, is anything that is held, rather than owned. This usage is a holdover from feudalism, which still forms the basis of all real-estate law in the English-speaking world, in which the monarch alone owned the allodial title to all the land within his kingdom.Under feudalism, land...

 by curtesy is to be deemed an estate arising under a settlement made by the wife.

The application of Courtesy (as spelled in Scots law) was abolished by Section 10 of the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964, in respect of all deaths occurring after the date of that Act. The right of Terce (being the equivalent claim by a wife on her husband's estate) was also abolished by the same provision.

California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 and Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

do not recognize curtesy.