20 Tenn. 459 | Tenn. | 1840
delivered the opinion of the court.
The complainant, Elizabeth, was the widow and relict of Peter Burton, and she, having dissented from his last will and testament, filed this bill against his devisees for an assignment of dower, and an account of the annual value or profits thereof from the death of the said Peter, and for a distributive share of his pei’sonal estate. It appears from the bill and cross bill, the answers to both, and from the proofs, that in the month of June, 1830, Peter Burton, then of an advanced age, a widower, and the father of several adult children, intermarried with the complainant, Elizabeth, then a widow of an age also somewhat advanced, and the mother of several adult children by a former marriage. At various periods prior to the intermarriage of Peter Burton and the complainant, Elizabeth, the former, commencing as early as 1812, had made reasonable advancements in real and personal estate to his children upon their marriage; and in 1829, in the lifetime of his former wife, he had settled some of' his younger children, about that time married, upon small tracts of land given to them by parol, but not conveyed till a few months after his last marriage. He then resided in the coun-
The principal contest in this case is, whether the complainant, Elizabeth, shall have dower assigned her in the real estate conveyed by Peter Burton to his children by way of advancement subsequently to his intermarriage with complainant. It is insisted that she is entitled to dower in such real estate by operation of the act of 1784, ch. 29, which declares “that any conveyance made fraudulently to children or otherwise with the intention to defeat the widow of the dower thereby attached shall be held and decreed to be void, and such widow shall be entitled to dower in such lands so fraudulently conveyed as if no conveyance had been made.” Without going into a recital of the proof intended to establish a fraudulent purpose in fact on the part of the husband in making the conveyance referred to, or attempting any argument on the effect of such proof, we deem it sufficient to announce as the result of our investigation the conviction fhat a fraudulent purpose in the conveyance is not established by the testimony against the husband. Nor is an actual fraudulent intention much insisted on in argument by the counsel
We waive at present all inquiry into the effect of the marriage contract, which, as it was destroyed by mutual consent some months after the marriage, was probably destroyed after the conveyances, or at least it is not shown by the complainants to have been destroyed before the conveyances. Such inquiry might preclude the raising of the question above referred to, and which has been chiefly discussed in this case. Authorities upon the very point are wanting; and as advancements in real estate by the father to the children must have been frequently and constantly occurring without the wife joining in the conveyance, which with us she never does except when owner of lands in her own right, the absence of authority upon the point, under such circumstances, would seem to establish that the opinion not of society only but of the profession in general from the time of the statute to this moment has been against the construction contended for. This, however, it must be conceded, is a persuasive only and not a conclusive argument in favor of the contrary construction. The learned and able judge, indeed, who delivered the opinion of the court in the case of Hughes vs. Shaw, Martin and Yerger, 329, makes an animated argument in favor of the construction of the statute contended for by the complainants, at the close of which, however, he adds, “We forbear to give any decision upon this question in this case; it has not been argued, nor is it essential to decide upon it.” The error of that argument, it seems to us, consists chiefly in construing the general provisions of the statute on the subject of dower as if it had been “that the widow shall be endowed of all lands of which the husband was seized during the coverture, provided however that the husband may during coverture alien any of his lands bona fide, and for a valuable consideration, in which case the lands so aliened shall be exempted from the widow’s dower.” If such had been the provision, the widow’s right would in all cases have