Sec.4.  In most of the states, laws have been enacted, allowing married women to hold, in their own exclusive right, all the property, real and personal, which they owned at the time of marriage, and which they may acquire after marriage. (Chap.  XLVIII, Sec.8.) With the right of possession is also given, it is presumed, the power of disposing of the property by will.

Sec.5.  A will devising real estate must be subscribed by at least two, in some slates three, attending witnesses, in whose presence the testator must subscribe the will, or acknowledge that he subscribed it, and declare it to be his last will and testament.  If the testator is unable to sign his will, another person may write the testator’s name by his direction; but he should sign his own name as witness to the will.

Sec.6.  A testator may revoke or alter his will by a later will or writing, executed in the same manner.  But the second will, to revoke the former, must contain words expressly revoking it, or directing a different disposal of the property.  A will may also be revoked by a sale of the property.  And any alteration of the estate or interest of the testator in lands devised, is held to be an implied revocation of the will.  Lands purchased after a will has been made, are not conveyed by it.  As a general rule, a will is also revoked by the subsequent marriage of the testator and birth of a child, unless the wife and child have been otherwise provided for.  The will of an unmarried woman is revoked by her marriage.

Sec.7.  By the statutes of some states, a child born after the death of the testator, or born in his lifetime and after the making of the will, inherits a share of the estate, as if the father had died intestate.  In some other states, the statute goes further, and gives the same relief to all the children who are not provided for in the will, and who have not had their portion in the parent’s lifetime.

Sec.8.  A codicil is an addition or a supplement to a will, and must be executed with the same solemnity.  It is no revocation of a will, except in the precise degree in which it is inconsistent with it.

Sec.9.  After the death of a testator, the will is brought before the court of probate to be proved. (Chap.  XX, Sec.5.) When a will has been duly proved and allowed, the court issues letters testamentary to the executor.  An executor is a person named in the will of a testator to carry the will into effect. Letters testamentary give him the power to act in settling the estate of the deceased.  If he refuses to act, or is not lawfully qualified, the court appoints a person, who, in that case, is called administrator; and the court issues letters of administration with the will annexed.  Letters of administration are also issued in case of a person dying intestate.  They give to the administrator the requisite authority to settle the estate.