tenancy by the courtesy

It is believed that the rigid rules of the Common Law, have never been applied to a wife's estate in lands of this description... It would indeed be idle to compel an heir or purchaser, to find his way through pathless deserts, into lands still overrun by the aborigines, in order to 'break a twig,' or 'turn a sod,' or 'read a deed,' before he could acquire a legal freehold... If a right of entry therefore exists, it ought by analogy to be sufficient to sustain the tenure acquired by the husband, where no adverse possession exists; as it is laid down in the books relative to a seisin in law 'he has the thing, if he has a right to have it.