curtesy

Curtesy \Cur"te*sy\ (k?r"t?-s?), n.; pl. {Curtesies} (-s?z).
   [Either fr. courlesy, the lands being held as it were by
   favor; or fr. court (LL. curtis), the husband being regarded
   as holding the lands as a vassal of the court. See {Court},
   {Courtesy}.] (Law)
   the life estate which a husband has in the lands of his
   deceased wife, which by the common law takes effect where he
   has had issue by her, born alive, and capable of inheriting
   the lands. --Mozley & W.
   [1913 Webster]
    

CURTESY, or COURTESY, Scotch law. A life-rent given by law to the surviving 
husband, of all his wife's heritage of which she died intest, if there was a 
child of the marriage born alive. The child born of the marriage must be the 
mother's heir. If she had a child by a former marriage, who is to succeed to 
her estate, the husband has no right to the curtesy while such child is 
alive; so that the curtesy is due to the husband rather as father to the 
heir, than as husband to an heiress, conformable to the Roman law, which 
gives to the father the usufruct of what the child succeeds to by the 
mother. Ersk. Pr. L. Scot. B. 2, t. 9, s. 30. Vide Estate by the curtesy.