Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol II).djvu/148

 136 thereof to the lord, and the widow is immediate tenant to the heir, by a kind of ubinfeudation or under-tenancy, completed by this invetiture or aignment: which tenure may till be created, notwithtanding the tatute of quia emptores, becaue the heir parts not with the fee-imple, but only with an etate for life. If the heir or his guardian do not aign her dower within the term of quarentine, or do aign it unfairly, he has her remedy at law, and the heriff is appointed to aign it. If the thing of which he is endowed be diviible, her dower mut be et out by metes and bounds; but, if it be indiviible, he mut be endowed pecially; as, of the third preentation to a church, the third toll-dih of a mill, the third part of the profits of an office, the third heaf of tithe, and the like.

preconcerted marriages, and in etates of coniderable conequence, tenancy in dower happens very eldom: for, the claim of the wife to her dower at the common law diffuing itelf o extenively, it became a great clog to alienations, and was otherwie inconvenient to families. Wherefore, ince the alteration of the antient law repecting dower ad otium eccleiae, which hath occaioned the intire diue of that pecies of dower, jointures have been introduced in their tead, as a bar to the claim at common law. Which leads me to enquire, latly.

4. dower may be barred or prevented. A widow may be barred of her dower not only by elopement, divorce, being an alien, the treaon of her huband, and other diabilities before-mentioned, but alo by detaining the title deeds, or evidences of the etate from the heir; until he retores them : and, by the tatute of Gloceter, if a dowager alienes the land aigned her for dower, he forfeits it ipo facto, and the heir may recover it by action. A woman alo may be barred of her dower, by levying a fine or uffering a recovery of the lands, during her cover- Rh