Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/141

 Ch. 8. IV. in dower is where the huband of a woman is eied of an etate of inheritance, and dies; in this cae, the wife hall have the third part of all the lands and tenements whereof he was eied during the coverture, to hold to herelf for the term of her natural life.

is called in Latin by the foreign jurits doarium, but by Bracton and our Englih writers dos; which among the Romans ignified the marriage portion, which the wife brought to her huband; but with us is applied to ignify this kind of etate, to which the civil law, in it's original tate, had nothing that bore a reemblance: nor indeed is there any thing in general more different, than the regulation of landed property according to the Englih, and Roman laws. Dower out of lands eems alo to have been unknown in the early part of our Saxon contitution; for, in the laws of king Edmond, the wife is directed to be upported wholly out of the peronal etate. Afterwards, as may be een in gavelkind tenure, the widow became entitled to a conditional etate in one half of the lands, with a provio that he remained chate and unmarried ; as is uual alo in copyhold dowers, or free bench. Yet ome have acribed the introduction of dower to the Normans, as a branch of their local tenures; though we cannot expect any feodal reaon for it's invention, ince it was not a part of the pure, primitive, imple law of feuds, but was firt of all introduced into that ytem (wherein it was called triens, tertia, and dotalitium) by the emperor Frederick the econd ; who was cotemporary with our king Henry III. It is poible therefore that it might be with us the relic of a Danih cutom: ince, according to the hitorians of that country, dower was introduced into Denmark by Swein, the father of our Canute the great, out of gratitude to the Danih ladies, who old all their Rh