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Between Poverty and the Pyre

Moments in the History of Widowhood

Between Poverty and the Pyre
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US$ 170.00 (+ tax)
This wide-ranging collection considers the history of widowhood across a variety of different cultures. It brings together contributors from various disciplines: social, legal and religious history, anthropology and literature. Between Poverty and the Pyre covers the realities and representations of the widows' lives with studies which are historically and culturally wide-ranging, from ancient Israel to eighteenth-century Britain and France. There are discussions of widowhood from legal and religious perspectives. The differences and similarities between the experience of rich and poor widows is also examined.
The contributors present and explain many fascinating aspects of widows' lives: their prominence in marginal religious movements, their desirability as heiresses to the throne in Anglo-Saxon England, their precarious legal position in relation to the European colonies, and their disappearance from view in modern times,
Between Poverty and the Pyre shows how difficult it is to define the typical 'widow' because the history of widowhood has been so varied. This book should help all those with an interest in the history of women to perceive the rich cultural variation in the experience and representation of widowhood.
Routledge; March 1995
285 pages; ISBN 9780203036983
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