Widows

In Japanese, the literal translation of a widow – a woman who has outlived her husband – is ‘she who has not died yet.’ For millennia, widows have occupied the margins of society: banished to the wilderness, silenced and shrouded in black or white. Across cultures, laws and customs have maligned them as witches, dependants or objects of pity. In some traditions, widows are expected to remarry within the husband’s family, or, in extreme cases, commit self-immolation – expectations never placed on men. Yet widowhood has also produced unexpected freedoms: financial and sexual autonomy, rights denied to married women. Internationally renowned cultural historian Mineke Schipper draws on sources from ancient Egypt and Greece to Africa, the Americas and beyond to reveal a global legacy of shame, resilience and defiance. Rich in striking detail, Widows uncovers the last feminist taboo – one that the world would prefer not to talk about.