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Conditions And Limitations In Restraint Of Marriage, Olin Browder Jr.

Michigan Law Review

From ancient times it has been a practice of testators to provide for the termination of a devised estate upon the marriage of the devisee, or to make their gifts conditional upon a beneficiary's marrying in a prescribed manner. In this way, a parent may hope to extend beyond his death his influence over recalcitrant or irresponsible offspring. But restraints on marriage may have other purposes. More often than not, a testator, by limiting an estate until marriage or by providing for forfeiture upon marriage, may merely seek to assure the maintenance of a female beneficiary until a husband assumes …