§2. To _devise_ property is to give or bequeath it by will. A _will_ is a written instrument in which a person declares his will concerning the disposal of his property after his death. It is also called _testament_. This word is from the Latin _testis_, meaning witness. Hence the word has come to be applied to this instrument, which is the witness or proof of a person's will. A person making a will is called _testator_; one who dies without making a will or testament, is called _intestate_.
§3. All persons of full age and sound mind, except married women, may give and bequeath real and personal estate by a last will and testament. In many of the states, personal estate may be willed at an earlier age. In a few states, females at eighteen may make a will of real and personal estate. In a few states, personal estate may be willed verbally, if the will is within a specified time reduced to writing, and subscribed by disinterested witnesses. In Ohio such will must be written within ten days after the speaking of the testamentary words. A will of this kind is called a _nuncupative_ will.
§4. In most of the states, laws have been enacted, allowing married women to hold, in their own exclusive right, all the property, real and personal, which they owned at the time of marriage, and which they may acquire after marriage. (Chap. XLVIII, §8.) With the right of possession is also given, it is presumed, the power of disposing of the property by will.
§5. A will devising real estate must be subscribed by at least two, in some slates three, attending witnesses, in whose presence the testator must subscribe the will, or acknowledge that he subscribed it, and declare it to be his last will and testament. If the testator is unable to sign his will, another person may write the testator's name by his direction; but he should sign his own name as witness to the will.
§6. A testator may revoke or alter his will by a later will or writing, executed in the same manner. But the second will, to revoke the former, must contain words expressly revoking it, or directing a different disposal of the property. A will may also be revoked by a sale of the property. And any alteration of the estate or interest of the testator in lands devised, is held to be an implied revocation of the will. Lands purchased after a will has been made, are not conveyed by it. As a general rule, a will is also revoked by the subsequent marriage of the testator and birth of a child, unless the wife and child have been otherwise provided for. The will of an unmarried woman is revoked by her marriage.