Definition
A phrase appearing in life insurance policies designating the named insured's spouse and children as the intended beneficiaries of the policy proceeds. When a life insurance policy is issued or assigned "for the benefit of his wife and children," the proceeds are directed to those dependents rather than to the insured's general estate, typically shielding the funds from the insured's creditors and from testamentary disposition.
The phrase operates as a term of art in insurance law, not merely a descriptive label. Its legal effect — particularly regarding vesting of the beneficiaries' interest, the insured's power to alter or revoke the designation, and the rights of creditors — was the subject of significant nineteenth-century litigation as life insurance became a common financial instrument.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering this phrase in historical sources should be alert to several complications.
First, the Rapalje & Lawrence entry is fragmentary. The source text reads "DREN, (in life policy). 66 Me. 517; 22 Am. Rep. 588" — the entry for "FOR THE BENEFIT OF HIS WIFE AND CHIL-DREN" was split across a page break, with the headword truncated. The full phrase is "for the benefit of his wife and children." The cited authority is a Maine case reported at 66 Me. 517, with a parallel report at 22 Am. Rep. 588. Researchers should retrieve the full case to understand what legal proposition Rapalje & Lawrence were annotating, as the surrounding text provides no explanatory gloss.
Second, the legal effect of this phrase varied considerably across jurisdictions and evolved rapidly during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Many states enacted specific statutes — sometimes called "exemption acts" or "married women's insurance acts" — that codified the beneficiary's interest and protected policy proceeds from the insured's creditors. Whether the phrase alone, absent a specific statute, created a vested interest in the wife and children was contested. Some courts held the interest vested immediately upon policy issuance; others held the insured retained a power of revocation until death.
Third, the phrase raises questions about which "children" are included — whether it extends to children born after the policy issued, to children of a prior marriage, or to illegitimate children. Historical courts did not resolve these questions uniformly, and a researcher analyzing a historical estate or insurance dispute must check both the policy language and the applicable state statute as it stood at the time of the policy.
Fourth, this phrase appears in a cluster of contextual phrases in Rapalje & Lawrence — "for the future" (in a decree), "for the land" (in a covenant), "for the time being" (in a charter), "for value received" (in a deed and promissory note) — each annotated with leading cases. Researchers working on phrase-of-art questions in historical instruments should consult this section of Rapalje & Lawrence as a whole, as the editorial method is consistent across entries.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence treat this phrase as a recognized term of art in life insurance law, warranting its own entry with case citation, which signals it was a phrase whose legal meaning required authoritative construction rather than ordinary reading. The truncation of the headword in the source text is a transcription artifact from the original dictionary's page break and should not be treated as a distinct or abbreviated phrase.
The single cited authority — 66 Me. 517; 22 Am. Rep. 588 — is the primary anchor Rapalje & Lawrence provide. The Am. Rep. citation indicates the case was considered significant enough for national reporter inclusion, suggesting it addressed a broadly applicable principle rather than a narrow local rule. Historical dictionaries of this period (1880s) generally did not attempt comprehensive treatment of beneficiary designation law, which was still developing; Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is therefore a starting point, not a complete account.
No other source dictionaries in the Law Mind corpus cover this phrase. Researchers should supplement Rapalje & Lawrence with period insurance law treatises and the applicable state's married women's property and insurance statutes.
Jurisdictional Note
The legal consequences of this phrase — vesting, revocability, and creditor protection — depended heavily on whether the jurisdiction had enacted a specific insurance exemption statute for wives and children. States with early married women's insurance acts (including New York and several New England states) produced the bulk of the nineteenth-century case law on this phrase.