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# Entail

## Definition

A legal device that restricts the alienation of landed property by preventing its division or sale outside a specified line of heirs, designed to preserve the estate's integrity and the family's political power across generations.

## Source Chapter

Book III, Chapter 2

## Context

Smith analyzes entails as the natural consequence of primogeniture, arguing they were rational during feudal times when estates functioned as principalities requiring protection, but have become economically absurd in modern Europe where they prevent efficient land use and improvement by binding property to outdated family lines.

## Economic Domain

Regulation

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