COURTESY, manners that suit a court, politeness. The ex pression "by courtesy" is used where something is granted out of favour and not of right, hence "courtesy" titles, i.e., those titles in the British peerage given to the eldest sons of dukes, marquesses and earls, and to the younger sons and the daughters of dukes and marquesses. Another form of the word "curtsey," once confined to the expression of courtesy by a gesture, is now used only of the reverence made by a woman. See FORMS OF ADDRESS.
In English law, courtesy (curtesy) was the life interest which a husband had in certain events in the lands of which his wife was in her lifetime actually seised for an estate of inheritance. The requisites for tenancy by the curtesy were: (1) a legal marriage; (2) an estate in possession of which the wife must have been actually seised; (3) issue born alive, capable of inheriting as heir to the wife, while (4) the title to the tenancy vested only on the death of the wife. Curtesy was finally abolished by the Adminis tration of Estates Act, 1925, and the Copyhold Act (Law of Property), 1922; but like dower, it still obtains in some colonies, while in others it has been superseded by the Homestead Acts.
Curtesy still survives in some States of the United States, but it is usually limited to Iands of which the wife is seised at her death.
See Pollock and Maitland, Hist. Eng. Law; Goodeve, Real Property.