**Curtesy** (noun) — A common law right entitling a surviving husband to a life estate in all land his deceased wife owned during the marriage, provided children were born of the marriage.
Curtesy was an old legal principle giving widowers rights to their deceased wife's property. It's the male equivalent of "dower," which gave widows rights to their deceased husband's property.
Under traditional curtesy rules, when a wife died, her husband received a life interest in any land she owned during the marriage, as long as they had children together. He could use the property for life, but couldn't sell it—it eventually passed to the wife's heirs.
Most jurisdictions have abolished curtesy. Modern marital property laws treat spouses equally and provide surviving spouse rights through different mechanisms—elective shares, community property rules, or statutory inheritance portions.
⏱ When you'll encounter this term
You'll rarely encounter curtesy in contemporary practice. It appears mainly in historical documents, old statutes that haven't been repealed, or when researching property with complicated historical title.
The concept reflects outdated views about marriage and property ownership. When curtesy was in use, married women often couldn't own property independently. Curtesy and dower provided some protection for surviving spouses when direct inheritance wasn't automatic.
Understanding curtesy helps when interpreting old wills or researching historical property transfers. Some jurisdictions retain vestigial curtesy statutes even though they're rarely applied. Modern equivalents focus on providing for surviving spouses regardless of gender, typically through intestacy rights or elective shares rather than specific land-based life estates.
**Related terms:** [Dower](/dictionary/dower), [Life Estate](/dictionary/life-estate), [Elective Share](/dictionary/elective-share)
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"The old property deed mentioned curtesy rights, a historical concept that gave my great-grandfather a life interest in land his wife owned. Those rights don't exist anymore under modern law."