ienation than is here stated; he
cannot confer an estate which will endure after the end of the marriage
or (as the case may be) after his own death. The wife has during the
marriage no power to alienate her land without her husband's
concurrence. The only process by which the fee can be alienated is a
_fine_ to which both husband and wife are parties and to which she gives
her assent after a separate examination.

"II. A widow is entitled to enjoy for her life under the name of dower
one third of any land of which the husband was seised in fee at any time
during the marriage. The result of this is that during the marriage the
husband cannot alienate his own land so as to bar his wife's right of
dower, unless this is done with her concurrence, and her concurrence is
ineffectual unless the conveyance is made by _fine_." [This
inconvenience for an unscrupulous husband was evaded in modern
conveyancy by a device of extreme ingenuity finally perfected only in
the eighteenth century. Professor James Bryce remarks (p. 820): "As this
right (i.e., the right of dower) interfered with the husband's power of
freely disposing of his own land, the lawyers at once set about to find
means of evading it, and found these partly in legal processes by which
the wife, her consent being ascertained by the courts, parted with her
right, partly by an ingenious device whereby lands could be conveyed to
a husband without the right of dower attaching to them, partly by giving
the wife a so-called jointure which barred her claim."]

"III. Our law institutes no community, even of movables, between husband
and wife. Whatever movables the wife has at the date of the marriage
become the husband's, and the husband is entitled to take possession of
and thereby to make his own whatever movables she becomes entitled to
during the marriage, and without her concurrence he can sue for all
debts that are due her. On his death, however, she becomes entitled to
all movables and debts that are outstanding, or (as the phrase goes)
have not been 'reduced into possession.' What the husband gets
possession of is simply his; he can freely dispose of it _inter vivos_
or by will. In the main, for this purpose as for other purposes, a 'term
of years' is treated as a chattel, but under an exceptional rule the
husband, though he can alienate his wife's 'chattel real' _inter vivos_,
cannot dispose of it by his will. If he has not alienated it _inter
vivos_, it will be he