LADY, a woman of distinction correlatively to lord (q.v.), used in a more extensive sense in common parlance correlatively to gentleman. As a title, it belongs to peeresses, the wives of peers and of peers by courtesy, the word lady being in all these cases pre fixed to the peerage title. The daughters of dukes, marquises, and earls are by courtesy designated by the title lady prefixed to their Christian name and surname; a title not lost by marriage with a commoner, when the lady only substitutes her husband's surname for her own, and retains her precedence. But a peer's daughter marrying a peer can no longer be designated by her Christian name with lady; she must take her husband's rank and title, even should a loss of precedence be the result, as when the daughter of a duke marries an earl, viscount, or baron. Should her husband, however, hp merely a courtesy peer, she may retain her designation by Christian name with lady prefixed, substituting her husband's courtesy title for her surname; this title and precedence being again dropped on her husband's succession to the peerage by his father's death. The daughter.
in-law of a duke, marquis, or earl is generally designated by the title lady prefixed to the Christian name and surname of her husband; but if she be the daughter of a peer of a higher her father-in-law, she may, if she pleases, be designated by lady pre fixed to her own Christian name and her husband's surname, and in that case she retains the precedence which she had when unmarried. The wife of a baronet or knight is generally designated by lady prefixed to her husband's surname; the proper legal designa tion, however, being dame, followed by her Christian name and surname.