Paul Drake said:

> Not all states were "dower rights states." <snip>
> Plus, those states that were once under the Napoleonic Code, or
> adopted it, had their own provisions -- these include, e.g., Louisiana
> and Texas (who use "community property" rights instead of dower
> rights).

The first sentence is correct. The second is partly correct--Texas is a
community property state.

But Texas was not under the Napoleonic Code except briefly when Texas was
part of Mexico and Mexico was part of Spain (Napoleon installed his
brother as king of Spain), and its constitutions both as a republic and as
a state are not derived from the Napoleonic Code. Its land law derives
from Spanish law, as do California's, Nevada's, New Mexico's, and
Arizona's (and a few others). Spanish land law predates Napoleon by
centuries.

Kathleen Much

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