“II.  A widow is entitled to enjoy for her life under the name of dower one third of any land of which the husband was seised in fee at any time during the marriage.  The result of this is that during the marriage the husband cannot alienate his own land so as to bar his wife’s right of dower, unless this is done with her concurrence, and her concurrence is ineffectual unless the conveyance is made by fine.” [This inconvenience for an unscrupulous husband was evaded in modern conveyancy by a device of extreme ingenuity finally perfected only in the eighteenth century.  Professor James Bryce remarks (p. 820):  “As this right (i.e., the right of dower) interfered with the husband’s power of freely disposing of his own land, the lawyers at once set about to find means of evading it, and found these partly in legal processes by which the wife, her consent being ascertained by the courts, parted with her right, partly by an ingenious device whereby lands could be conveyed to a husband without the right of dower attaching to them, partly by giving the wife a so-called jointure which barred her claim.”]

“III.  Our law institutes no community, even of movables, between husband and wife.  Whatever movables the wife has at the date of the marriage become the husband’s, and the husband is entitled to take possession of and thereby to make his own whatever movables she becomes entitled to during the marriage, and without her concurrence he can sue for all debts that are due her.  On his death, however, she becomes entitled to all movables and debts that are outstanding, or (as the phrase goes) have not been ‘reduced into possession.’  What the husband gets possession of is simply his; he can freely dispose of it inter vivos or by will.  In the main, for this purpose as for other purposes, a ’term of years’ is treated as a chattel, but under an exceptional rule the husband, though he can alienate his wife’s ‘chattel real’ inter vivos, cannot dispose of it by his will.  If he has not alienated it inter vivos, it will be hers if she survives him.  If he survives her, he is entitled to her ‘chattels real’ and is also entitled to be made the administrator of her estate.  In that capacity he has a right to whatever movables or debts have not yet been ‘reduced into possession’ and, when the debts have been paid, he keeps these goods as his own.  If she dies in his lifetime, she can have no other intestate successor.  Without his consent she can make no will, and any consent that he may have given is revocable at any time before the will is proved.

“IV.  Our common law—­but we have seen that this rule is not very old—­assured no share of the husband’s personality to the widow.  He can, even by his will, give all of it away from her except her necessary clothes, and with that exception his creditors can take all of it.  A further exception, of which there is not much to be read, is made of jewels, trinkets, and ornaments