COURTESY, or CURTESY, in law, is the life interest which the surviving husband has in the real or heritable estate of the wife. It is remarkable that, both in England and in Scotland. this customary right should be regarded as a national peculiarity—that iu England it should be called the C. of England, and in Scotland the C. of Scotland— whereas it is well known to be peculiar to neither of them. Traces of it are to be found in a constitution of the emperor Constantine (code 6, 60, 1); and there can be no doubt that it had found a place, with all the peculiarities which now belong to it, in the colt tume of Xormandy, from whence there is every reason to think that it was transferred to England (Barnage, vol. ii. p. 60; Stephen's Cont. vol. i. p. 264; Fraser's Domestic Rela tions, i. p. 635). The four circumstances which are requisite to make a tenancy by C. in England are—marriage, seizin of the wife, living issue, and the wife's death. The
rule that the child must have been heard to cry, which at one time was followed in England, is still adhered to in Scotland. It is not necessary, however, in either country, that the child survive; it is enough that it was once in existence, although it should have died immediately after its birth. In both countries, the child must be the mother's heir, and it is consequently said that C. is due to the surviving husband rather as the father of an heir than as the widower of an heiress. By 19 and 20 Vict. c. 120, which enables tenants for life of settled estates (see SETTLED ESTATE) to make effectual leases for 21 years, subject to the exceptions and provisions in the act contained, a simi lar power is also conferred upon tenants by the C. of unsettled estates (Stephen, i. p. 267). As to the law of Scotland on the point, see Hunter on Landlord and Tenant, i. p. 119.