MARSHALLING
When arms bearing families intermarried, they usually wanted to retain their arms while also displaying the arms of their spouse. This was done by arranging, or marshalling, the arms on one shield. In early times, all the elements were taken from both arms and combined into a new shield. Due to confusion and the lack of family identities being carried on, this was replaced by dimidation – cutting the two arms in half and joining the man's dexter portion with the woman's sinister portion. This caused problems, however, when distinguishing half a bend from half a chevron (among other difficulties). This practice was later changed to impalement, which used the entire arms compressed into one half of the final coat of arms. The most popular method used today is called quartering, where a shield is initially divided into four quadrants (party per cross) and the complete arms are distributed among the quarters. The quadrants are numbered, from left to right: first and second in the chief, and third and fourth in the base. The man's arms normally was placed in the first and fourth quarters, with the woman's in the second and third. Today, marshaling is performed in one of two ways; either through impalement or quartering.
