id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentences	flesch	summary	cache	txt
en-wikipedia-org-2005		Dower - Wikipedia			.html	text/html	3673	338	69	Dower is a provision accorded by law[citation needed] but traditionally by a husband or his family, to a wife for her support in the event that she should become widowed. Dower was a property arrangement for marriage first used in early medieval German cultures, and the Catholic Church drove its adoption into other countries, in order to improve the wife's security by this additional benefit. The husband was legally prevented from using the wife's dower — as contrasted with her dowry, which was brought to the marriage by the bride and used by both spouses. However, in the early modern period, it was common for a wife to bar her right to dower in advance under a marriage settlement, under which she agreed to take instead a jointure, that is a particular interest in her husband's property, either a particular share, or a life interest in a particular part of the land, or an annuity.	./cache/en-wikipedia-org-2005.html	./txt/en-wikipedia-org-2005.txt