Definition
In legal instruments, "his" is a masculine possessive pronoun that courts and drafters have long treated as capable of referring to persons of any gender when context requires it. The term arises most frequently as a drafting question: does use of "his" in a deed, policy, will, or contract restrict application to male persons, or does it extend to females and entities when the surrounding instrument indicates a broader intent?
Two distinct interpretive issues attach to the word in legal documents:
1. Gender neutrality when a name is abbreviated. Where a written instrument identifies a person by initials only—rather than a full Christian name—use of "his" to describe that person is not conclusive proof that the person is male. Extrinsic evidence, including parol evidence, is admissible to show the person intended is female.
2. Scope of a demise or grant. In conveyancing and insurance contexts, the referent of "his" may shift depending on the instrument's structure. A lease "for the term of his natural life" may measure the tenancy by the life of either the grantor or the grantee, determined by the surrounding circumstances and the parties' evident intent. Similarly, use of "his" rather than "their" in a policy of insurance to describe the assured's property does not void the policy if the assured holds an insurable interest, even a qualified or defeasible one.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Listed primarily as a possessive pronoun belonging to a male person ("the book is his").
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A pronominal adjective indicating belonging to a male; Webster notes that "his" was formerly used for "its" as well, a usage now obsolete.
Editorial note: The gap between common and legal meaning is narrow but consequential. In ordinary speech, "his" is understood as unambiguously masculine and singular. In legal drafting, courts have consistently held that "his" does not operate as a restriction to male persons when the instrument's overall intent points elsewhere—a distinction that matters when interpreting historical deeds, wills, and insurance policies where gender-neutral drafting conventions were not yet standard.
Common Confusion
Researchers should not conflate the interpretive rule about "his" with a general rule that gendered pronouns are always gender-neutral in older instruments. The rule is contextual and evidence-dependent, not a blanket presumption. "His" in a statute may be governed by a separate legislative definitional provision (often a statutory "words of one gender include the other" rule), which operates differently from the parol evidence approach applicable to private instruments.
Why It Matters in Research
The interpretive doctrine attached to "his" is a recurring trap in historical document research. Pre-twentieth-century deeds, wills, leases, and insurance policies routinely use "his" as a default pronoun regardless of the grantee's gender. Researchers working with those instruments must understand that the pronoun alone does not establish the sex of the party, and that courts permitted extrinsic evidence to correct what would otherwise be a misleading textual signal.
The Bouvier entry flags a second and separate research issue: in life-estate conveyancing, "his natural life" is ambiguous as to whose life measures the estate. The pur autre vie problem—a life estate measured by someone other than the tenant—emerges from precisely this kind of pronoun ambiguity. Researchers tracing title chains or estate disputes in historical records should flag any "his life" language and investigate which life was intended.
In insurance policy disputes, the "his/their" discrepancy documented in Bouvier reflects a period when policies were drafted for individual male insureds and later applied to partnerships or joint interests. Courts resolved these disputes through insurable interest analysis rather than voiding the policy on a drafting technicality. Researchers examining historical insurance litigation will encounter this reasoning frequently.
Modern statutory construction has largely addressed the gender problem through definitional provisions that expressly render masculine pronouns gender-inclusive, but those provisions do not apply retroactively to private instruments already in dispute.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries treat "his" from complementary angles. Black's (both editions) focuses on the evidentiary question: "his" referring to an initial-named person is rebuttable by parol evidence. The rule is stated consistently across editions and references the same California authority. Bouvier adds the conveyancing and insurance dimensions, making it the richer source for property and contract researchers.
None of the historical dictionaries address the modern statutory gender-neutrality rules, which postdate their publication. Researchers should treat the historical entries as governing private instrument interpretation and consult statutory construction materials for legislative text.
Bouvier's insurance example—"his" vs. "their"—reflects a genuine documentary problem of the period and is not a mere hypothetical. It signals that courts of the era were already treating "his" as susceptible to correction by context rather than as a hard gender-restrictive term.
Jurisdictional Note
Most U.S. jurisdictions now have statutory provisions declaring that words importing one gender include all genders in legislative texts. California's role in the foundational parol-evidence rule for private instruments (Berniaud v. Beecher) reflects an early judicial willingness to look past pronoun gender in private documents; other jurisdictions reached similar results through construction rules or equitable principles, though the precise mechanism varies.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Statutory Construction (gender-neutrality provisions in legislative drafting); Rules of Interpretation (pronoun usage in private instruments); Life Estates and Pur Autre Vie (measuring life ambiguity in conveyances).