Et ux, an abbreviation of the Latin phrase “et uxor” meaning “and wife,” was used in property deeds to refer to the husband’s ownership of property, with the wife considered insignificant. In the US, women have equal rights to own property, and joint leases allow women to hold title with a man without being married. Many legal terms, including et ux, come from Latin, but the law has evolved since their use.
Before women were allowed to own property in their own right or to have equal rights to the property owned by their husband, a deed or tax record often referred to the property as owned by the husband “et ux”. Et ux is an abbreviation of the Latin word et uxor, which literally translated means “and wife”. While the wife may have technically been included in the deed, she was considered so insignificant that she was not required to have a first name.
While not every country in the world recognizes a woman’s right to own property, the United States certainly does. The modern equivalent of et ux is property held as tenants by the whole or joint tenants. A full tenancy is the closest match to using et ux, as it requires the two people who hold title to the property to be married. Of course, a full lease is simply a legal status. The actual deed will have the proper names of both the husband and the wife.
A joint lease is similar to a full lease, although the two people who hold title to the property do not have to be married. This can be considered the final evolution from the Latin et ux, as a woman can hold title to a property together with a man without even being married to him. Both a full lease and a joint lease allow for survival rights, meaning that, upon the death of one owner, the other owner will automatically inherit the deceased’s share of the property.
Of course, a woman can also hold title to a property on her own, without a man being included in the title. Within the United States, women have equal rights to own, sell, donate, or invent property. Many states are also community property states, meaning a woman is entitled to half of the marital property when the couple divorces, regardless of who earned the money to buy the property or how the property was acquired.
Many words used for legal descriptions or phrases come from Latin, as many of the concepts and ideas for modern legal systems date back to ancient Rome. Other examples of common words still used in legal terminology include mens rea – guilty mind, corpus delecti – body of crime, and pro bono – for the public good. While Latin terms and phrases are still used today in many legal systems, much has changed in the law since they were first used.
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