Definition
Per tout et non per my (Law French: "by the whole, and not by the moiety") is a common law phrase describing the nature of ownership in a tenancy by the entirety. When a husband and wife hold an estate per tout et non per my, each spouse is seised of the entire property — the whole — rather than a fractional share or moiety. Neither spouse holds a divisible, separable portion; instead, both hold the entirety simultaneously and indivisibly.
The phrase encapsulates the common law fiction that a husband and wife were a single legal person. Because they were legally one, neither could hold a fractional part of jointly held property — there was only one owner, and that owner held everything. The practical consequences were significant: neither spouse could unilaterally alienate, encumber, or partition the property without the other's consent, and neither spouse's creditors could reach the other spouse's interest.
Common Language
This is pure legal jargon with no meaningful common counterpart. The component words — tout (all/whole) and my (moiety/half) — are Law French, not modern English, and the phrase has no currency outside legal and historical contexts.
Common Confusion
Per tout et non per my is frequently paired with, and must be distinguished from, the phrase applicable to joint tenancy. Joint tenants hold per my et per tout — by the moiety and by the whole — meaning each joint tenant has both a fractional undivided share in the whole and a notional moiety for survivorship purposes. The reversal of the phrase is not cosmetic; it reflects a substantive doctrinal difference. In joint tenancy, a co-tenant's interest can, in many circumstances, be severed and individually conveyed. In tenancy by the entirety, the per tout et non per my character of the holding means severance by one spouse alone is impossible. Confusing these two formulas — or treating them as equivalent because both involve "undivided" interests — produces fundamental errors in analyzing co-ownership disputes, creditor claims, and conveyancing history.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encounter per tout et non per my primarily in three contexts: historical treatises and commentaries, old deed and conveyancing records, and doctrinal analysis of tenancy by the entirety in jurisdictions that retained or have revived it.
The phrase is a marker for a specific doctrinal framework. When you see it in a historical source, it signals that the author is discussing entireties tenure — with all its common law incidents — not joint tenancy or tenancy in common. Conflating these forms because they all involve "co-ownership" is a persistent research trap in older materials.
Jurisdictional variation is substantial and historically consequential. Many American states abolished tenancy by the entirety during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, often through Married Women's Property Acts that disrupted the legal-unity-of-spouses fiction on which per tout et non per my rested. In those jurisdictions, the phrase effectively became a historical artifact. Other states retained or modified the form. Researchers working across time periods or jurisdictions must determine which regime applied at the relevant moment — the phrase's appearance in a source does not mean it had operative legal effect in the jurisdiction under study.
In equity and creditor contexts, the per tout et non per my character of entireties property has been the analytical pivot in disputes about whether a creditor of one spouse could reach property held in the tenancy. Historical sources are inconsistent on this point, and the answer varied by jurisdiction and period. Do not assume a uniform rule from treatise authority alone.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary preserves the phrase in its classical form, citing Blackstone's Commentaries (2 Bl. Comm. 182) as the foundational authority. Blackstone's treatment remains the clearest exposition of the underlying doctrine: because husband and wife were one person in law, an estate conveyed to both was held by that single legal unit in its entirety, with no moiety capable of being extracted.
Black's entry is accurate but minimal — it defines the phrase and states the rule without elaborating the consequences or the doctrinal tensions that followed from it. Researchers should not rely on Black's alone to understand the full incident structure of tenancy by the entirety; the phrase is the key, but the consequences (inability to partition, protection from individual creditors, survivorship) require engagement with the broader treatise literature.
Historical dictionaries generally agree on the core meaning. The phrase itself is uncontested. What historical sources often fail to address is the turbulence introduced by Married Women's Property Acts and the widely varying state-by-state responses, which mean that the per tout et non per my character of entireties property cannot simply be assumed from the presence of a married couple on a deed without knowing the jurisdiction and applicable date.
Jurisdictional Note
Tenancy by the entirety — and with it, the operative significance of per tout et non per my — was abolished or substantially modified in many U.S. jurisdictions following the Married Women's Property Acts of the mid-to-late nineteenth century. It remains recognized in a significant minority of states, though the specific incidents, particularly creditor protections, vary considerably. Researchers should identify the controlling jurisdiction and applicable period before applying any authority built on the per tout et non per my framework.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See TENANCY BY THE ENTIRETY