Charlie Fenton’s Reviews > Widowhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe > Status Update

‘Richard Smith had recently argued that poor relief provision was preferentially given to elderly women in the late seventeenth century. Early modern English widows were often paid twice as much as married couples, and those who had been better-off before the death of their husbands were given higher levels of relief.’

‘On the day a Tudor or Stuart woman lost her husband, she shed the restrictive bonds imposed by coverture and regained her independent legal status. Now she could own property, enter into contracts, make a will, buy and sell goods, collect rents, accept gifts and bring legal actions.’

‘The topic of widowhood can be found across the genres of printed satires, dialogues, paradoxes, discourses and even private letters and mémoires. Most of the satires and prescriptive literature tend to come from male pens and depict moral conventions, stereotypes and caricatures. The lusty widow was a favourite target. She personified the concern expressed in the Edict of Second Marriages’

‘in the century following the first publication of Vives’ work English widows did continue to engage vigorously in economic affairs, and indeed became even more numerous amongst those involved in litigation. They were also increasingly less likely to remarry. They played the man’s part. If they were going to be controlled it would have to be by self-restraint, balancing feminine virtue with public virility.’