Definition
Post prolem suscitatam is a Latin legal phrase meaning "after issue born" or "after issue raised." It describes a point in time — specifically, the moment after a married couple has produced lawful offspring — which historically served as a marker affecting certain property rights, particularly those arising under the common law doctrine of tenancy by the curtesy.
At common law, a husband's right to curtesy in his wife's estate required, among other conditions, that the marriage produce living issue capable of inheriting the land. The birth of that issue — the moment captured by post prolem suscitatam — transformed the husband's inchoate interest into a vested one. Before issue was born, the husband had no protected expectation in his wife's land. After issue was born, the right attached.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase appears almost exclusively in the context of curtesy and, less frequently, in discussions of dower and feudal land tenure. Researchers encountering it in historical deeds, conveyances, pleadings, or treatises should recognize it as a temporal marker with legal consequence, not mere description.
The critical trap: the phrase signals a dividing line in the accrual of property rights, so documents referencing post prolem suscitatam are almost always addressing whether a husband's curtesy interest had vested at the time of a conveyance, devise, or dispute. If a wife conveyed land before the birth of issue, that conveyance might bar or complicate a subsequent curtesy claim; if after, the husband's interest was already fixed.
Because curtesy has been abolished or substantially modified by statute in most American jurisdictions — many replacing it with elective share regimes — this phrase is unlikely to appear in modern litigation. Researchers will encounter it primarily in pre-twentieth-century sources: English common law reports, Coke's commentary on Littleton (the foundational source cited by all three historical dictionaries), early American equity decisions involving real property, and historical treatises on land law.
The phrase connects directly to its counterpart, post mortem (after death), and to the procedural and substantive framework of curtesy initiate versus curtesy consummate — distinctions that turn precisely on whether issue had been born and whether the wife had died.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core translation: "after issue born" or "after issue raised." All three trace the phrase to Coke on Littleton, the authoritative common law text on real property. Black's first edition and second edition cite slightly different page references (196 and 190, respectively), a minor discrepancy likely reflecting different editions of Coke. Burrill's entry appears truncated in available sources, cutting off mid-sentence, but the fragment is consistent with the others.
None of the historical dictionaries elaborate on the doctrinal function of the phrase beyond the translation. They treat it as a reference term pointing back to Coke rather than as a concept requiring independent explanation. This is typical of Latin maxims in nineteenth-century legal dictionaries: the phrase was assumed to be self-glossing for a bar trained in common law property. Modern researchers should not expect these entries to supply context; they must go directly to Coke on Littleton and the curtesy doctrine literature for that.
A notable gap: Black's first edition appended a definition of POST ROAD under this headword, an apparent typographical artifact of the dictionary's original layout. The POST ROAD definition has no connection to post prolem suscitatam and should be disregarded when encountered.
Jurisdictional Note
Post prolem suscitatam and the curtesy doctrine it supports are creatures of English common law and early American common law jurisdictions. The requirement of issue born as a condition of curtesy was universal at common law but has been abolished or superseded in virtually all U.S. states by statutory reform. The phrase retains relevance primarily in historical title examination and academic common law property research.