The Widows' Might

The Widows' Might PDF Author: Vivian Bruce Conger
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 081471711X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
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.

The Widows' Might

The Widows' Might PDF Author: Vivian Bruce Conger
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 081471711X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

The Profession of Widowhood

The Profession of Widowhood PDF Author: Katherine Clark Walter
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
ISBN: 0813230195
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
The Profession of Widowhood explores how the idea of ‘true’ widowhood was central to pre-modern ideas concerning marriage and of female identity more generally. The medieval figure of the Christian vere vidua or “good” widow evolved from and reinforced ancient social and religious sensibilities of chastity, loyalty and grief as gendered ‘work.’ The ideal widow was a virtuous woman who mourned her dead husband in chastity, solitude, and most importantly, in perpetuity, marking her as “a widow indeed” (1 Tim 5:5). The widow who failed to display adequate grief fulfilled the stereotype of the ‘merry widow’ who forgot her departed spouse and abused her sexual and social freedom. Stereotypes of widows ‘good’ and ‘bad’ served highly-charged ideological functions in pre-modern culture, and have remained durable even in modern times, even as Western secular society now focuses more on a woman’s recovery from grief and possible re-coupling than the expectation that she remain forever widowed. The widow represented not only the powerful bond created by love and marriage, but also embodied the conventions of grief that ordered the response when those bonds were broken by premature death. This notion of the widow as both a passive memorial to her husband and as an active ‘rememberer’ was rooted in ancient traditions, and appropriated by early Christian and medieval authors who used “good” widowhood to describe the varieties of female celibacy and to define the social and gender order. A tradition of widowhood characterized by chastity, solitude, and permanent bereavement affirmed both the sexual mores and political agenda of the medieval Church. Medieval widows—both holy women recognized as saints and ‘ordinary women’ in medieval daily life—recognized this tradition of professed chastity in widowhood not only as a valuable strategy for avoiding remarriage and protecting their independence, but as a state with inherent dignity that afforded opportunities for spiritual development in this world and eternal merit in the next.

Wife and Widow in Medieval England

Wife and Widow in Medieval England PDF Author: Sue Sheridan Walker
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472104154
Category : England
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Examines the role of women in medieval law and society

Introduction to the Devout Life

Introduction to the Devout Life PDF Author: Francis de Sales
Publisher: Our Sunday Visitor
ISBN: 1681922894
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
A contemporary selection of Catholic classics, curated for the modern reader by Our Sunday Visitor in the spirit of our founder, Archbishop John Francis Noll.

Fenland Notes & Queries

Fenland Notes & Queries PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cambridgeshire (England)
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description


Fenland Notes and Queries

Fenland Notes and Queries PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cambridgeshire (England)
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description


British Monachism

British Monachism PDF Author: Thomas Dudley Fosbroke
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Great Britain
Languages : en
Pages : 500

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Book Description


Performing Widowhood on the Early Modern English Stage

Performing Widowhood on the Early Modern English Stage PDF Author: Asuka Kimura
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 1501513893
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
The deaths of husbands radically changed women’s lives in the early modern period. While losing male protection, widows acquired rare opportunities for social and economic independence. Placed between death and life, female submissiveness and male audacity, chastity and sexual awareness, or tragedy and comedy, widows were highly problematic in early modern patriarchal society. They were also popular figures in the theatre, arousing both male desire and anxiety. Now how did Shakespeare and his contemporaries represent them on the stage? What kind of costume, props, and gestures were employed? What influence did actors, spectators, and play-space have? This book offers a fresh and incisive examination of the theatrical representation of widows by discussing the material conditions of the early modern stage. It is also the only comprehensive study of this topic covering all three phases of Elizabethan, Jacobean, and Caroline drama.

The Secreta Monita of the Jesuits ... Edited by H. M. W(-r). Published to Guard Protestants, Etc

The Secreta Monita of the Jesuits ... Edited by H. M. W(-r). Published to Guard Protestants, Etc PDF Author: Jesuits
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 50

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Book Description


Women in a Celtic Church

Women in a Celtic Church PDF Author: Christina Harrington
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 019154308X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
A history of women in the early Irish church has never before been written, despite perennial interest in the early Christianity of Celtic areas, and indeed the increasing interest in gender and spirituality generally. This book covers the development of women's religious professions in the primitive church in St Patrick's era and the development of large women's monasteries such as Kildare, Clonbroney, Cloonburren, and Killeedy. It traces its subject through the heyday of the seventh century, through the Viking era, and the Culdee reforms, to the era of the Europeanization of the twelfth century. The place of women and their establishments is considered against the wider Irish background and compared with female religiosity elsewhere in early medieval Europe. The author demonstrates that while Ireland was distinct it was still very much part of the wider world of Western Christendom, and it must be appreciated as such. Grounded in the primary material of the period the book places in the foreground many largely unknown Irish texts in order to bring them to the attention of scholars in related fields. Throughout the study the author notes widespread ideas about Celtic women, pagan priestesses, and Saint Brigit, considering how these perceptions came about in light of the texts and historiographical traditions of the previous centuries.