Talk:Dower

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I have added sections to this article and removed the section tag on this page. --Danaman5 06:07, 25 March 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hopiakuta 23:19, 23 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

Could the person who applied the 'clarify' tag at the head of the article please indicate on this page what the problem with the article is? Peterkingiron 17:15, 3 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Wasn't me, but I'm guessing that the difficulty may well be that the article doesn't make sufficiently clear the distinction between "dower" (= property given by the husband to the bride) and "dowry" (= property given by the bride's family to the husband). It's in there somewhere, but not emphasised adequately. And in general the article is not as clearly written as it could be. HeartofaDog 13:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

This article is too vague and confusing throughout to even list all of the specific problems succinctly here. Some problems include (from the top):

→ What does "It was settled on the bride, ..." mean?

→ Is the term "Dowager" a suffix as stated in the article, or a prefix as used in the example of "Dowager Queen" and "Dowager Countess"?

→ In the first section ("Meaning") the language "Being for the widow and being accorded by law," is confusing language. Is the audience for this article exptected to be lawyers? Would this have been better stated as: "The dower is something of value that is given by the husband to the wife to be reserved by her for her support upon the occurrence of her being widowed." ? Is my understanding of this correct? I can't quite tell from the original language of the article.

→ What does the language: "The bride received a settled property from the bridegroom's clan." mean? What does "settled" mean here? Also, wasn't the dower something from the husband to the wife, as the matter of the "morning gift" seems to indicate? Here it states that it is something from the "bridegroom's clan" to the wife? Which is it? Or is it either the groom or the groom's clan?

→ Et cetera! The remainder of the article is even more confusing!

Also, I did not tag the article as confusing, although I think that it indeed is somewhat confusing. Thanks for any attention to this. -- Coldwarrior 18:13, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

I agree that the article should not merely be suitable for lawyers. The problem is that this is a technical (and nowadays comparatively unfamiliar) legal concept. It is further complicated by the difficulty of handling together the differing concepts of dower in different legal systems. Some of your probelm may be with understanding the word 'settled', which isused in the second sense identified for settlement in settlement (law). I have tried to clarify some of the problems that you raise. However I do not have access to the books cited or knowledge of legal systems other than England (and similar common law jurisdictions). The question of whether it came from the groom or his clan (changed to family) will vary according to local practice. If you can point to more difficulties, I will try to sort them out. I do not find it confusing, but I have a legal training. I thus leave some one else to decide whether the Template:confusing (talk · links · edit) tag can now be removed. I have done as well as I can for the moment. Peterkingiron 16:57, 31 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Since no one has replied ot my last comment in 15 months. I hav remoived the "confusing" tag. Peterkingiron (talk) 20:32, 26 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

1. The "Meaning" section is, ironically, confusing. It reads like a list of random one word paragraphs with no structure because that's what it is.

2. Counties in New York (I can't speak for other states) have dower records. When there was a legal proceeding, affidavits and other evidences were presented in an effort to settle the case. These court records provide valuable family histories and genealogical information. Thank you for your time, Wordreader (talk) 18:45, 5 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

The article is still written in stilted, and jargony, language. Can someone knowledgeable in this topic please do re-writes in plain English? Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 05:28, 14 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

I agree that the language is particularly opaque. It is difficullt/impossible to make sense of what is meant. 74.127.200.35 (talk) 23:11, 2 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

This section is almost certainly factually false. The source for Quebec law is from the 1870's! Unless someone can produce a better and more up to-date source for the claims in this section, I think it should be deleted. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:39, 23 October 2016 (UTC)Reply
It is correct that this section is false. Much more accurate is the section on Quebec law (which anyway is more correct than "French Canada") at https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douaire#Droit_québécois And, there should be link between these two pages on Dower/Douaire?