Definition
Latin: "by or with the consent of the father." Ex assensu patris was a specific form of dower recognized under English common law, operative during the lifetime of a husband's father. It arose when a son, with the express consent of his father, formally endowed his wife with a portion of the father's lands at the church door. Because the son had no present ownership interest in those lands, the father's explicit assent was the legal mechanism that made the endowment valid and enforceable. The wife would then hold a dower right in those lands if she survived her husband.
The doctrine was a subspecies of dower ad ostium ecclesiae — the broader category of dower created by public declaration at the church door rather than arising automatically by operation of law. Ex assensu patris distinguished itself from ordinary dower ad ostium ecclesiae by the fact that the lands being endowed belonged to the father, not yet to the husband. The father's consent substituted for the husband's ownership.
The doctrine was abolished in England by the Dower Act of 1833 (3 & 4 Wm. IV, c. 105, § 13), which swept away the nominative forms of dower, including dower ad ostium ecclesiae and ex assensu patris, retaining only dower at common law — itself later abolished by the Law of Property Act 1925.
---
Common Confusion
Ex assensu patris is frequently encountered alongside the related phrase ex assensu suo, which appears in the same historical sources. The two phrases are distinct: ex assensu patris concerns the father's consent to a dower arrangement over his own lands; ex assensu suo ("with his assent") was a formal recital used in judgments for damages by default. Researchers working through early common law materials should not conflate these phrases, as they operate in entirely different procedural and substantive contexts.
Ex assensu patris should also be distinguished from dower ad ostium ecclesiae in its general form. Dower ad ostium ecclesiae could be created by a husband endowing his wife from his own lands at the church door; ex assensu patris was the specific variant requiring the father's express consent because the husband lacked a present interest in the lands being endowed.
---
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a relic of medieval English land law and will appear almost exclusively in pre-1833 English sources, early American treatises that surveyed inherited common law doctrine, and historical digests organizing dower into its recognized forms. It has no living legal operation in any common law jurisdiction.
Researchers will most often encounter ex assensu patris in three contexts: (1) treatises cataloguing the forms of dower, particularly those following Littleton's Tenures and Blackstone's Commentaries; (2) early English case reporters from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, where dower claims were actively litigated and the form of dower had to be precisely pleaded; and (3) American treatises written before and shortly after independence, where authors surveyed which English common law doctrines had been received into American law — ex assensu patris typically appears as an example of a form that was never meaningfully transplanted.
The Burrill entry's citation to Littleton § 40 and Blackstone's Commentaries, Book II at 133 are the primary learned authority anchors. Researchers tracing the doctrine to its root should consult those sources directly. The Croke Jacobus citations in Burrill (Cro. Jac. 415, 587) point to early seventeenth-century case law where the doctrine was applied.
The abolition date — 1833 — is the critical chronological marker. Any source discussing ex assensu patris as operative law must predate that statute. Post-1833 appearances are historical or analytical only.
---
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in full agreement on the core definition: by or with the father's consent, a subspecies of dower ad ostium ecclesiae, requiring the father's express consent to endow the wife with the father's lands during the father's lifetime, abolished by 3 & 4 Wm. IV, c. 105, § 13.
Burrill is the most useful for research purposes because it alone supplies the learned authority chain — Littleton § 40, Blackstone II:133, and the Croke Jacobus citations — giving the researcher a direct path into primary sources. Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence provide clean definitions but no authority references beyond the abolition statute.
The second edition of Black's adds the entry for ex assensu suo immediately following, which is helpful context but risks confusion for researchers scanning entries quickly.
None of the historical dictionaries address whether American courts ever recognized ex assensu patris or how American states receiving English common law treated it. This is a gap researchers should note: the silence in these dictionaries on American reception is itself informative, suggesting the doctrine had little or no practical American application.
---
Jurisdictional Note
Ex assensu patris was a creature of English common law and was abolished in England in 1833. American jurisdictions that received English common law generally did not adopt the nominative forms of dower — including ex assensu patris and dower ad ostium ecclesiae — as operative doctrine, and the term does not appear as living law in American cases. It survives only in historical treatises and as a reference point in American scholarship on the English origins of dower law.
---