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Marie that is a very deceptive answer. Dower rights cannot be "sold" or "divided" or "distributed". Under North Carolina's 1795 succession act, which was in effect at that time, the land of an intestate was divided equally among his children. The widow received no land under any circumstances. She merely retained the same dower right that she had when her husband was alive. The dower right was an interest in the income produced by the land. Thus the widow had a right to part of the income from the lands owned by the children, but she had no rights to occupy the lands or rent them out or sell them. When the widow died, her dower died as well. There was nothing to "distribute". (And, by the way, her remarrying did not change anything.) The widow did, however, receive an ownership share of the personal property of an intestate. This would include farm and household equipment, crops in the ground, livestock, and so on. If the husband died testate then the provisions of the will, rather than the law, would determine what the widow received. A typical provision was to devise property to a child but give the widow a lifetime right to use it. This removed her dower rights from other pieces of property, but gave her more rights than the dower would have (like the right to live on the land). Wills rarely devised land outright to a widow. Notify Administrator about this message?
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