Dower

Every heard of a dowery? A dower is in the same field, but different timeline. What happens when a married dude dies, but without a will? Oh yeah, and he’s got property and money and stuff...you know, like an estate. What is a widow to do?

Enter: the dower.

A dower is a common law that says a widow gets at least some of her husband’s estate if there’s no will...usually around a third of it. The dower was written in mind, keeping the widow and any shared kids the deceased dude and the now-widow have taken care of.

So why don’t we hear about dowers today? Well, they’ve been kind of replaced by other things like inheritance laws and rights, which are applicable to both men and women. So...it’s a bit outdated. But the dower lives on...it’s still there. Slowly dying...along with gender inequality, hopefully.