The Widows' Might
The Widows' Might

Author: Vivian Bruce Conger

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2009-03-01

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 081471711X

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In early American society, one’s identity was determined in large part by gender. The ways in which men and women engaged with their communities were generally not equal: married women fell under the legal control of their husbands, who handled all negotiations with the outside world, as well as many domestic interactions. The death of a husband enabled women to transcend this strict gender divide. Yet, as a widow, a woman occupied a third, liminal gender in early America, performing an unusual mix of male and female roles in both public and private life. With shrewd analysis of widows’ wills as well as prescriptive literature, court appearances, newspaper advertisements, and letters, The Widows’ Might explores how widows were portrayed in early American culture, and how widows themselves responded to their unique role. Using a comparative approach, Vivian Bruce Conger deftly analyzes how widows in colonial Massachusetts, South Carolina, and Maryland navigated their domestic, legal, economic, and community roles in early American society.

Widows Under Hindu Law
Widows Under Hindu Law

Author: David J. Brick

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 0197664547

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During British colonial rule in India, the treatment of high-caste Hindu widows became the subject of great controversy. Such women were not permitted to remarry and were offered two options: a life of seclusion and rigorous asceticism or death on the funeral pyre of a deceased husband. Was this a modern development, or did it date from the classical period? In this book, David Brick offers an exhaustive history of the treatment and status of widows under classical Hindu law, or Dharmasastra as it is called in Sanskrit, which spanned approximately the third century BCE to the eighteenth-century CE. Under Dharmasastra, Hindu jurists treated at length and at times hotly debated four widow-related issues: widow remarriage and levirate, a widow's right to inherit her husband's estate, widow-asceticism, and sati. Each of the book's chapters examine these issues in depth, concluding with an appendix that addresses a widow's right to adopt a son-a fifth widow-related issue that became the topic of discussion in late Dharmasastra works and was a significant point of legal contentions during the colonial period. When read critically and historically, works of Dharmasastra provide a long and detailed record of the prevailing legal and social norms of high-caste Hindu society. Widows Under Hindu Law uses lengthy English translations of important passages from Hindu legal texts to present a largescale narrative of the treatment of widows under the Hindu legal tradition. This is an open access title. It is available to read and download as a free PDF version on the Oxford Academic platform. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International licence.

Widows in India
Widows in India

Author: T. N. Kitchlu

Publisher: APH Publishing

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 9788170245292

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Socioeconomic conditions of widows in India.

Widows: The Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific
Widows: The Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific

Author: Helena Znaniecka Lopata

Publisher: Durham : Duke University Press

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

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What happens whene the husband dies depends on the society, on the location of the widow in urban-rural or class terms, and on the widow's own personal resources. In some societies the woman is totally dependent upon a grown son and cannot remarry; in others, such as that in the United States, she is more dependent upon her own resouces and wishes. For some, widowhood results in a great loss of status; for others, it can mean loneliness and social isolation. Yet widowhood can mean greater social freedom for some women, a "blooming of personality. Even grief is experienced in various ways and degrees. Thus there is no such thing as a "widow type," only a great heterogenity in widowhood, as in "wifehood." Volume I analyzes the support systems and life-styles of widows in Australia, the Philippines, Korea, Iran, China, a Pacific island, India, Turkey, and Israel. Volume II : North America examines two communities in Canada, a Florida retirement community, and communities in several other locations, as well as the relative situations of homeowners, blacks, and poor ethnic populations.

A World of Widows
A World of Widows

Author: Margaret Owen

Publisher: Zed Books

Published: 1996-09

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 9781856494205

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A World of Widows provides a global overview of the status for widowhood. Neglected by social policy researches, international human rights activists and the women's movement, the status of the world's widows - legal, social, cultural, and economic - is an urgent issue given the extent and the severity of the discrimination against them. Margaret Own explores the process of becoming a widow; poverty and social security in the context of widowhood; differing laws and customs regarding widow's inheritance; the situation of widows who remarry and issues of sexuality and health. She also looks at the needs of specific groups of widows - refugees, older widows, child widows - and widowhood in the context of AIDS. Throughout, she shows the prevalence of discrimination against widows in inheritance rights, land ownership, custody of children, security of home and shelter, nutrition and health. The book concludes with a summary of widowhood as a human rights issues and an overview of widows themselves organising for change.

From Wives to Widows in Early Modern Paris
From Wives to Widows in Early Modern Paris

Author: Janine M. Lanza

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-22

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 1317131525

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Looking especially at widows of master craftsmen in early modern Paris, this study provides analysis of the social and cultural structures that shaped widows' lives as well as their day-to-day experiences. Janine Lanza examines widows in early modern Paris at every social and economic level, beginning with the late sixteenth century when changes in royal law curtailed the movement of property within families up to the time of the French Revolution. The glimpses she gives us of widows running businesses, debating remarriage, and negotiating marriage contracts offer precious insights into the daily lives of women in this period. Lanza shows that understanding widows dramatically alters our understanding of gender, not only in terms of how it was lived in this period but also how historians can use this idea as a category of analysis. Her study also engages the historiographical issue of business and entrepreneurship, particularly women's participation in the world of work; and explicitly examines the place of the law in the lived experience of the early modern period. How did widowed women use their newly acquired legal emancipation? How did they handle their emotional loss? How did their roles in their families and their communities change? How did they remain financially solvent without a man in the house? How did they make decisions that had always been made by the men around them? These questions all touch upon the experience of widows and on the ways women related to prevalent structures and ideologies in this society. Lanza's study of these women, the ways they were represented and how they experienced their widowhood, challenges many historical assumptions about women and their roles with respect to the law, the family, and economic activity.