10 FORMS OF POSSESSION 



estate acquired by two or more persons, usually females, 

 by descent from the same ancestor. There is but a single 

 estate and it resembles a joint tenancy more closely than a 

 tenancy in common, but it is like the latter in that there 

 is no survivorship. Estates in coparcenary are now gen- 

 erally abolished or changed into tenancies in common in 

 the United States by statute. 



14. Life Tenancy. "An estate for life is a freehold 

 interest in land, the duration of which cannot extend beyond 

 the life or lives of some particular person or persons, but 

 which may possibly endure for the period of such life or 

 lives." 1 During the period that the estate endures, the 

 life tenant is entitled to the exclusive possession and en- 

 joyment of the premises but he cannot take advantage of 

 this possession and beneficial use in such a manner as to 

 diminish or abridge the right of the reversioner or remain- 

 derman who is to take the full title as soon as the life estate 

 is ended. 



15. Dower. Dower consists at common law of a 

 third part of all the lands and tenements of which a hus- 

 band was seized in fee simple or fee tail at any time during 

 coverture, and to which any issue which his wife might 

 have had, might by possibility have been heir, to be held 

 by the wife for the term of her natural life. 2 After assign- 

 ment of dower in particular lands by metes and bounds and 

 entry thereon, the widow is seized of an immediate free- 

 hold and is vested with a life estate therein. 3 As standing 

 timber is part of the realty a widow's dower attaches thereto. 

 The general rule in the United States is that a wife is 

 dowable of wild lands which are not valuable except for 

 the timber thereon, 4 but in some states court decisions or 

 statutes exclude dower in such lands unless they are used 



1. 16 Cyc. 614. 



2. 14 Cyc. 880. 



3. 14 Cyc. 1013. 



4. Pike v. Underbill, 24 Ark. 124; Chapman v. Schroeder, 10 Ga. 321; Schnebly v. 



Schnebly, 26 111. 116; Hickman v. Irvine's Heirs, 3 Dana (Ky.) 121; In re 

 Campbell 2 Dougl. (Mich.) 141; Brown v.Richards, 17 N. J. Eq. 32; Walker 

 v. Schuyler 10 Wend. (N. Y.) 480; Allen v.McCoy 8 Ohio 418; Macaulay v. 

 Dismal Swamp Land Co., 2 Rob., Va., 507; Canada. Titus v. Haines, 11 

 Nova Scotia 542; See 17 Cent. Dig. tit. "Dower."Sec. 35. Contra. Conner Y. 

 Shepherd. 15 Mass. 164. 



