TERMS OF CONFUSEMENT: DOWRY AND DOWER

by Myra Vanderpool Gormley, C.G.

The custom of a dowry dates back to ancient Europe. In Roman times, it was the legal right of a woman to demand one from her father. The dowry, at first, was given to the husband to help defray the expenses of setting up the new household.

In England a dower was often a part of the marriage settlement. It was known before the Norman conquest, and was reorganized under the Magna Carta signed by King John in 1215. Additionally, in civil law countries, the dowry was a well-known and important form of property. Dowry and dower are terms that are confused. Dowry refers to the money, goods or estate that a wife brought to her husband at marriage, while dower is a legal term designating the portion of a deceased husband's real property allowed to his widow for her lifetime.

Dowry as a custom was never widespread in America. Nevertheless, in 1759 an enterprising American businessman placed an advertisement for a wife who had her own funds. It appeared in the Boston Evening Post wherein he explained he was seeking "a young lady, 18-23, of middling stature, brown hair, regular features, a lively brisk eye, of good morals and not tinctured with anything that may sully so distinguishable a form, possessed of 300-400 pounds entirely her own disposal, and where there will be no necessity of going through the tiresome talk of addressing parents or guardians for their consent...'' The results of his advertising are not known.

Years later there were numerous alliances between American heiresses and European nobility in which immense dowries were cashed in for titles. Franklin H. Work, the millionaire American great-great-grandfather of the late Princess Diana, was against these "foreign" marriages.

"It's time this international marrying came to a stop, for our American girls are ruining our country by it,'' he said in a 1911 article in the New York Daily Tribune. "As fast as our honorable, hardworking men can earn their money, their daughters take it and toss it across the ocean. And for what? For the purpose of a title and the privilege of paying the debts of so-called noblemen! If I had anything to say about the matter I'd make an international marriage a hanging offence (sic).''

While you may encounter dowries in your research, the genealogist is more likely to find mention of dower in American records. Dower is the provision which the law makes for a widow out of the lands or tenements of her husband for her support and the nurture of her children.

Dower was the life estate to which every married woman was entitled if her husband died intestate, or in case she dissented from his will. Under the old common law, when a man died, one-third of his estate went to his wife, one-third to his issue, and one-third he could dispose of as he wished. The widow's dower was usually preserved for her and took precedence over any devise of realty in her husband's will, unless she elected to accept the provisions of the will in lieu of dower, or unless she had already forfeited dower claims by an antenuptial agreement. Dower has been abolished in the majority of the states and materially altered in most of the others.

Old terminology can be confusing. Don't make assumptions about word meanings. Always check Black's Law Dictionary and genealogical dictionaries such as The New A to Zax to verify meanings and clarify terms you discover in your genealogical research.

(c) 1997, Los Angeles Times Syndicate