Definition
"As dower" is a phrase used in property law and estate planning instruments — most commonly in deeds, wills, and spousal election clauses — to describe a share, bequest, or conveyance given to a surviving spouse in the same character and on the same terms as the common-law right of dower. It signals that what is being granted stands in the place of, or mirrors the nature of, the dower interest a widow (historically) would have been entitled to claim at common law. The phrase is closely associated with its functional equivalent, "in lieu of dower," and the two expressions are frequently used interchangeably in instruments dealing with spousal property rights.
Common Confusion
"As dower" and "in lieu of dower" are treated as interchangeable in many instruments and court decisions, including the authority cited in Bouvier's. The distinction, when courts have drawn one, is subtle: "in lieu of dower" most clearly signals a substitution — something given instead of the dower right, which the spouse is thereby barred from also claiming — while "as dower" can suggest the grant itself is being characterized as the dower interest rather than as a replacement for it. In practice, the operative effect is almost always identical: the surviving spouse receives a defined share, and the common-law dower claim is extinguished or satisfied. Researchers should not assume a drafting difference carries legal significance without examining how the jurisdiction's courts have treated the specific language.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase appears almost exclusively in older instruments — deeds, wills, and antenuptial agreements — drafted during the era when common-law dower was a live property right. Because dower has been abolished or substantially modified in most U.S. jurisdictions, researchers encountering "as dower" in historical documents are dealing with a term that carried real legal weight at the time of drafting but may have no operative counterpart under current law.
The key research trap is assuming that "as dower" language in a historical deed or will has a straightforward modern equivalent. Courts interpreting older instruments must ask what the grantor or testator intended by the phrase at the time of execution, which requires understanding the dower law in force in that jurisdiction at that moment. A bequest "as dower" in an 1880 will operates against a very different legal backdrop than the same phrase in a 1950 deed.
The interchangeability with "in lieu of dower" noted in Bouvier's also signals a research caution: do not treat these phrases as terms of art with fixed, distinct meanings across all jurisdictions and time periods. Courts have not always agreed, and the functional equivalence depends heavily on surrounding instrument language and local precedent.
For corpus researchers, this phrase is most productively searched alongside dower, curtesy, spousal election, and fee tail to reconstruct how property was transferred within families across generations in pre-modern American and English law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's treats "as dower" and "in lieu of dower" as functionally interchangeable, citing authority (112 S.W. 911) for the proposition directly. This reflects the practical reality that courts generally declined to distinguish between the two formulations when the operative intent — satisfying or replacing a dower claim — was clear from context. Bouvier's does not elaborate further on internal distinctions between the phrases, which is itself informative: the phrase was not a term of art with independent doctrinal weight, but rather a conventional expression whose meaning was settled by context and surrounding instrument language. Historical dictionaries generally treat "as dower" as derivative of the broader dower entry rather than as a freestanding concept, and researchers should follow that lead, anchoring analysis in the core doctrine of dower itself.
Jurisdictional Note
Because dower has been abolished in most U.S. jurisdictions — replaced in many states by elective share statutes — the phrase "as dower" now appears almost exclusively in historical instruments. Where it still surfaces in litigation, it is typically in disputes over the construction of old deeds or wills, and the applicable law is the law of the jurisdiction at the time the instrument was executed.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Dower; Spousal Property Rights; Elective Share.