the Rule (argh!)
Posted by Laura W on November 26, 1997 at 00:58:45:
In response to Entailments, written by Constanza on November 25, 1997 at 19:30:54
] Further, it has to be the "eldest" male-line descent available.
] I think you all discussed this somewhere else, but, how comes Collins has a surname other than Bennet?
The jury is still out. To my knowledge, no one has yet come up with a compelling answer. (My personal guess is that Austen didn't want to have to deal with two Mr. Bennets, so she changed one to Mr. Collins.) Mark came up with a pretty good guess last week.
] It is limited in time to a "life in being plus 21 years."
] Isn't this time limit somewhat recent? I had some British Law courses at the university and, I may be wrong, but believe that the "life in being plus 21 years" was a "modern"reform to put some order to entailments and as such did not modify existing ones.
Well, I just did a little quickie research, and naturally my textbooks do not give a date for the origin of the rule; probably it evolved over a period of time. The most recent date I found in the discussion of it was 1540. The earliest was 1164.
I would guess that "modern" in this context means 18th century. Blackstone published in 1765; I will have to try to discover if he discussed the Rule Against Perpetuities.
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