Definition
A several tail is a form of fee tail arising when land is granted jointly to two persons (and their respective spouses) with remainder to the heirs of their respective bodies. Although the donees hold the land as joint tenants during their lives, the inheritance is several rather than joint: upon the death of each donee, that donee's share descends to his or her own issue, not to the surviving donee or that donee's issue. Each line of descent is therefore independent — the issue of the first donee inherits one moiety, and the issue of the second donee inherits the other moiety.
The key paradox that gives the term its identity: joint possession during life, separate inheritance at death. The estate is simultaneously joint (as to the life interest) and several (as to the entailed inheritance).
Common Confusion
SEVERAL TAIL vs. FEE TAIL GENERAL vs. FEE TAIL SPECIAL: These are related but distinct concepts within the law of entails. A fee tail general descends to all lineal heirs of the donee; a fee tail special restricts descent to heirs by a particular spouse. A several tail is not defined by restriction on which heirs qualify, but by the splitting of the inheritance between two independent donee-lines holding simultaneously. A researcher encountering "several tail" in a deed or conveyance should not treat it as merely a synonym for fee tail special, though both involve restrictions on the path of descent.
SEVERAL vs. JOINT (in the tail context): In ordinary property law, "several" means separate, as opposed to joint. In a several tail, this opposition is put under stress — the estate is joint in one dimension and several in another. Researchers should resist collapsing either characteristic.
Why It Matters in Research
Several tail is a term of art belonging almost entirely to the pre-modern common law of real property and will appear almost exclusively in historical sources — deeds, conveyances, chancery records, and treatises predating the widespread statutory abolition of fee tail in the United States and its effective transformation in England under the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833.
Researchers working in colonial American land records, English manorial records, or early American probate materials may encounter the term in instruments of conveyance. Its practical significance lies in identifying who could inherit which share of a jointly granted estate: each moiety follows its own line of descent and does not cross over to the other donee's issue. This has consequences for tracing title chains, identifying heirs, and understanding why a particular parcel of land was divided or litigated.
Because nearly all American jurisdictions have abolished fee tail by statute — converting it to a fee simple or a life estate with remainder — several tail has no living operative force in modern American property law. However, it retains interpretive importance when courts or title examiners must construe the effect of historical instruments. A deed from 1750 creating a several tail must be understood on its own terms before a court can determine what the modern equivalent interest is under the jurisdiction's conversion statute.
The absence of the term from most modern treatises means researchers must rely on historical dictionaries and older equity materials. Coke, Littleton, and Blackstone are the primary doctrinal sources. Cowell's Interpreter, cited by both Black's and Bouvier's, is the immediate source for the standard definition reproduced in American legal dictionaries.
Be aware that the two major historical dictionary sources for this entry (Black's and Bouvier's) reproduce Cowell's definition almost verbatim, offering no independent elaboration. Researchers should not mistake the unanimity of these dictionaries for independent authority — they are echoing a single seventeenth-century source.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Bouvier's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement on this term, and for good reason: both trace directly to John Cowell's The Interpreter (1607), a glossary of legal and antiquarian terms. The definition is reproduced nearly word-for-word in both dictionaries, down to the specific example of two men, their wives, and heirs of their bodies begotten.
This convergence is informative about the term's status: it was a recognized term of art in the classical common law, stable enough to pass unchanged into American legal dictionaries, but narrow enough that no significant doctrinal development accumulated around it. Neither Black's nor Bouvier's adds case law, treatise elaboration, or jurisdictional nuance — suggesting the term functioned more as a classificatory label than as a source of active litigation.
What historical sources miss: neither dictionary addresses the statutory consequences of several tail in American jurisdictions, nor do they engage with how courts should construe historical several tail grants after the abolition of fee tail. That interpretive work must be done by consulting the conversion statutes of the relevant jurisdiction and, where available, state court decisions on the construction of pre-abolition entails.
Jurisdictional Note
Fee tail, and with it several tail, has been abolished or converted by statute in virtually every American jurisdiction. England effectively ended the practical significance of fee tail through the Fines and Recoveries Act 1833 and later legislation. Several tail therefore operates today primarily as a historical category relevant to title examination and the construction of pre-abolition instruments, not as a form of estate that can be created in any modern conveyance.