Ad Ostium Ecclesi', Dower

Ad ostium ecclesi', Dower. Where a tenant in fee-simple of full age, openly 'at the door of the church' (where all marriages were formerly celebrated) after affiance made and troth plighted between them, endowed his wife with the whole or such quantity of his land as he pleased, specifying and ascertaining the same, the wife, after her husband's death, might have entered without further ceremony. Abolished by the (English) Dower Act, 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4, c. 105, s. 13).