Definition
A writ that lay for a wife who had been judicially separated from her husband to compel the recovery of her alimony or estovers — that is, the maintenance or allowance to which she was legally entitled following separation. The writ's name translates roughly as "for having estovers," reflecting its purpose as an enforcement mechanism rather than an adjudicatory one. It presupposed that a judicial separation had already occurred and that the husband was failing to pay what had been ordered or was otherwise owed. Now obsolete.
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Common Confusion
The writ is closely tied to the broader term ESTOVERS, which in its older sense referred to necessaries — wood, food, or other sustenance — that a dependent party was entitled to receive. In the matrimonial context, "estovers" came to signify a wife's allowance or maintenance. Researchers should not conflate estovers in the property law sense (the right to take wood or other resources from land) with estovers in the matrimonial sense as used in this writ. The two usages share a common root but operate in entirely different legal frameworks. See also ALIMONY for the modern successor concept.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term is significant almost exclusively as a historical artifact of English common law matrimonial procedure. Researchers encountering it in historical sources should understand several things:
First, the writ belongs to the pre-modern English system of ecclesiastical and common law jurisdiction over marriage and separation. Judicial separation (as distinct from divorce a vinculo matrimonii, which dissolved the marriage entirely) was the province of ecclesiastical courts, and the husband's obligation to maintain the wife flowed from that proceeding. The writ of estoveriis habendis was a common law mechanism to enforce that obligation, bridging the ecclesiastical and temporal jurisdictions.
Second, the term appears almost exclusively in medieval and early modern English legal sources. It will not appear in American legal materials in any operative sense. Researchers working in American colonial or early republic sources who encounter maintenance-related writs should look instead to the developing American law of alimony, which diverged from and largely replaced the English writ framework.
Third, the typographical error in the second edition of Black's ("alltmony" for "alimony") is a known artifact and does not represent a distinct legal concept.
Fourth, because the writ is obsolete, its appearance in a document is a strong dating signal. Finding this term in a legal record is evidence the document originates in or is describing English law prior to the consolidation of matrimonial jurisdiction in secular courts — a process substantially advanced in England by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Both editions of Black's Law Dictionary agree on the substance: this is a writ for a judicially separated wife to recover her alimony or estovers, and both editions mark it obsolete. The entries are nearly identical, with the second edition containing an apparent typographical error ("alltmony") that carries no legal significance. Neither edition elaborates on the writ's procedural mechanics, its origins in English practice, or the relationship between the ecclesiastical judgment of separation and the common law enforcement mechanism. Researchers seeking deeper treatment will need to consult historical treatises on English matrimonial law, as the dictionary sources provide only a skeleton identification. The brevity of both entries reflects the term's status as a historical curiosity rather than a working legal concept by the time Black's was compiled.
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Jurisdictional Note
This writ is exclusively a creature of English common law and ecclesiastical court practice. It has no American counterpart and was never part of operative American law. Researchers working in English legal history should situate it within the pre-1857 dual-jurisdiction framework for matrimonial causes.
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