Perpetuity

Any limitation tending to take property out of commerce for a longer period than a life or lives in being, and twenty-one years beyond, and, in case of a posthumous child, a few months more, allowing for the term of gestation.

Randall, Perp. 48.

Such a limitation of property as renders it inalienable beyond the period allowed by law. Gilbert, Uses, Sugd. ed. 260, n. “A future limitation, whether executory or by way of remainder, and of real or personal property, which is not to vest till after the expiration of or which will not necessarily vest within, the period prescribed by law for the creation of future estates, and which is not destructible by the person for the time being entitled to the property subject to the future limitation, except with the concurrence of the person interested in the contingent event” Lewis, Perpetuities ch.

12.

This was said by Gibson, C. J., to be the nearest approach to a perfect definition of a perpetuity; Ilillyard v. Miller, 10 Pa. 334. It is suggested that some confusion has arisen in connection with the law of perpetuities because of a certain ambiguity in the legal definition of the term itself. ‘‘The original meaning of a perpetuity is an inalienable, indestructible interest. The second artificial meaning is, an interest which will not vest to a remote period. This latter is the meaning which is attached to the term when the rule against perpetuities is spoken of;” Gray, Perp. § 140. The author last cited considers it a matter of regret that the rule should not have been known as the rule against remoteness, rather thap the rule as against perpetuities. The comment was made upon this statement that notwithstanding the declaration quoted from this author, ‘‘yet in all his Miffin’s Appeal, 121 Pa. 205, 15 Atl. 525, 1