Definition
"Home and maintenance during the time" is a testamentary phrase used in wills to describe a conditional bequest of support — specifically, the provision of lodging and sustenance to a surviving spouse or other beneficiary for the duration of a qualifying period. The phrase typically appears as part of a conditional gift that runs only so long as the beneficiary satisfies an attached condition, most commonly remaining unmarried after the testator's death. The "time" referenced is the period during which the condition holds: the beneficiary receives home and maintenance for as long as the condition is fulfilled, and loses the benefit upon the condition's breach or termination.
The phrase is not a term of art in the sense of having a statutory definition. Its meaning is derived from context — the surrounding language of the will, the nature of the condition attached, and the court's construction of the testator's intent.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase is almost always encountered in nineteenth-century testamentary cases, particularly those involving widows' provisions and the condition of remaining unmarried. It does not appear as a standalone legal doctrine but as a phrase requiring judicial construction — which means its meaning in any given case turns entirely on the surrounding will language and the court's interpretive approach.
Researchers working with historical wills or probate records should be alert to the fact that "home and maintenance during the time" is a support phrase, not a devise of real property or a bequest of personalty in the conventional sense. Courts treated it as creating a personal right to occupancy and support rather than a fee interest or even a life estate. This distinction matters for tracing what happened to the underlying property once the condition ended.
The phrase pairs almost invariably with conditions such as "so long as she remains unmarried" or "during her widowhood." When researching cases under this phrase, the relevant doctrinal questions cluster around: (1) whether the condition is void as against public policy (courts generally upheld conditions restraining remarriage as valid on widows' provisions, distinguishing them from void restraints on first marriages); (2) what constitutes a breach of the condition; and (3) what remedy or forfeiture follows breach.
Because the phrase creates a support right rather than a property interest, it can be confused with dower, with life estates subject to defeasance, or with annuity provisions. Researchers should distinguish carefully: a home and maintenance provision typically runs personally to the beneficiary and does not pass to her estate.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence index this phrase under the heading "SHE REMAINS UNMARRIED, (in a will)," citing 126 Mass. 433, 436. This placement is telling: the dictionaries treat "home and maintenance during the time" not as an independent entry but as subordinate to the condition of remaining unmarried. The implication is that the phrase was understood primarily as a durational support provision, with its operative scope defined entirely by the attached condition.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry offers no independent definition of the phrase itself, which reflects the nineteenth-century approach to such language: its meaning was self-evident to practitioners of the period, and its legal significance lay in the condition it served rather than in the support provision standing alone. Modern researchers should not expect substantial definitional guidance from historical dictionaries on this phrase — the doctrinal action was in the conditions, not the support language.
What historical sources do not address directly is the question of enforcement mechanics: how a beneficiary compelled provision of home and maintenance, whether a money equivalent could be substituted, or what courts did when the estate lacked physical property suitable for a "home." These practical questions were resolved case by case.
Jurisdictional Note
This phrase appears most prominently in Massachusetts probate jurisprudence of the nineteenth century, consistent with the Rapalje & Lawrence citation to Massachusetts Reports. Other states used similar language in wills but may have resolved the attendant doctrinal questions — particularly the validity of the remarriage condition — differently. Researchers working outside Massachusetts should not assume that the construction given in Massachusetts cases controls.