Extracted From:
  A LAW DICTIONARY ..., SIXTH EDITION, 1856
  by John Bouvier, CHILDS & PETERSON, PHILADELPHIA


JOINTURE, estates. A competent livelihood of freehold for the wife, of lands and
tenements; to take effect in profit or possession, presently after the death of
the husband, for the life of the wife at least. 

Jointures are regulated by the statute of 27 Hen.VIII.o.10, commonly called the
statute of uses. 

To make a good jointure, the following circumstances must concur, namely; 

  1. It must take effect, in possession or profit, immediately from the death of
the husband. 

  2. It must be for the wife's life, or for some greater estate. 

  3. It must be limited to the wife herself, and not to any other person in
trust for her. 

  4. It must be made in satisfaction for the wife's whole dower, and not of part
of it only. 

  5. The estate limited to the wife must be expressed or averred to be, in
satisfaction of her whole dower. 

  6. It must be made before marriage. 

A jointure attended with all these circumstances is binding on the widow, and is
a complete bar to the claim of dower; or rather it prevents its ever arising.
But there are other modes of limiting an estate to a wife, which, Lord Coke
says, are good jointures within the statute, provided the wife accepts of them
after the death of the husband. She may, however, reject them, and claim her
dower.... In its more enlarged sense, a jointure signifies a joint estate,
limited to both husband and wife....

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