Widows and Patriarchy Ancient and Modern

In Widows and Patriarchy Thomas McGinn explores the implications of an analytical understanding of patriarchy. He takes up Moses Finley's argument that ancient society was structured by a 'spectrum of statuses' and applies this insight to the position of women, primarily that of widows, in three historical periods: classical antiquity, late medieval and early modern Europe, specifically England and Germany, and the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century West. Widows are potentially of great significance, for they comprise in all these cultures a problematic category of adult women who are notionally independent of males. Their status and role become a focus for concern about gender relations, as though the widow was a sort of 'woman-plus'. A particular source of anxiety about widows is the fact that they are sexually experienced, though ' ideally ' not sexually active. The book examines rights at private law, economic privilege and its absence, freedom of movement in general, including the question of bodily integrity and fear of physical interference, and, the entitlement to decide whether and whom to remarry. Two principal types emerge from representations of widows across cultures, the merry and the mourning. Since antiquity, widows have been a byword for the weak and oppressed. Do the facts as recovered sustain this image or not? What does the answer to this question tell us about where widows rank in relation to other women in any given society?

Thomas A. J. McGinn is Professor of Classical Studies, Religion, and Women's Studies at Vanderbilt University.