Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "while single" or "while unmarried," used in old conveyances and legal instruments to describe a condition or limitation tied to a woman's unmarried status. The phrase appears most commonly in two extended forms: dum sola fuerit ("while she shall remain sole") and dum sola et casta vixerit ("while she lives single and chaste"). When used as a limiting phrase in a conveyance or grant, it restricted the duration of an estate or the enjoyment of a benefit to the period during which the woman remained unmarried — and in the stricter form, also chaste.
The phrase was also applied more generally to describe acts done by, or legal consequences attaching to, an unmarried woman in connection with her single status.
Common Confusion
Dum sola is sometimes encountered alongside related phrases that add conditions beyond mere unmarried status. Dum sola fuerit speaks only to the single condition; dum sola et casta vixerit adds chastity as a concurrent requirement. These are not interchangeable. Researchers encountering one form in a historical instrument should not assume the other's scope applies, as the distinction could determine whether a condition was breached by remarriage alone or by unchastity without remarriage.
Why It Matters in Research
This term belongs almost entirely to historical property law and the law of coverture. Its practical significance ended when married women's property acts dismantled the legal disabilities of coverture across common law jurisdictions through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Researchers working in pre-reform conveyancing records, wills, and settlement instruments will encounter dum sola as a standard limitation phrase — particularly in marriage settlements and dower-related instruments where a grantor sought to preserve property only so long as a female grantee remained unmarried.
The phrase also surfaces in historical pleading contexts. Under coverture doctrine, a married woman generally could not sue or be sued in her own name; actions brought by or against a woman dum sola — that is, during her period of singleness — required special treatment when she subsequently married during the pendency of litigation. Researchers consulting older reports and pleading manuals should recognize this procedural usage as distinct from the conveyancing usage.
Because dum sola conditions were tied to common law coverture, they are largely absent from modern instruments. Finding the phrase in a modern document would be unusual and potentially ineffective depending on jurisdiction, as the legal framework that gave such conditions their operative force no longer exists in the same form.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Burrill, and Rapalje & Lawrence are in close agreement. All three identify the phrase as Latin for "while single or unmarried" and note its use as a limitation in old conveyances. Black's and Burrill both cite Coke on Littleton (Co. Litt. 235a) as the primary authority, anchoring the phrase firmly in the classical common law property tradition. Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is notably brief, offering only the translation without elaboration or citation.
Neither Black's nor Burrill addresses the procedural dimension of dum sola — its relevance to pleading and the effect of subsequent marriage on pending actions — suggesting that dimension was treated elsewhere in those sources or absorbed into coverture doctrine generally. Researchers should not treat these dictionary entries as exhaustive; the phrase's full operational context requires consulting treatises on common law coverture, feme sole and feme covert doctrine, and historical conveyancing practice.
Jurisdictional Note
Dum sola conditions originated in English common law and were carried into American property practice. Their relevance is now historical across all common law jurisdictions. Researchers working in Scottish or civilian-influenced jurisdictions should note that the parallel doctrines operated differently, and direct translation of dum sola instruments into those legal systems requires caution.