The Profession of Widowhood

Released on by Katherine Clark Walter
preview-18

  • The Profession of Widowhood Book Detail

  • Author : Katherine Clark Walter
  • Release Date : 2018-09-21
  • Publisher : Catholic University of America Press
  • Genre : History
  • Pages : 447
  • ISBN 13 : 0813230195
  • File Size : 59,59 MB
DOWNLOAD BOOK

The Profession of Widowhood by Katherine Clark Walter PDF Summary

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.

Disclaimer: www.yourbookbest.com does not own The Profession of Widowhood books pdf, neither created or scanned. We just provide the link that is already available on the internet, public domain and in Google Drive. If any way it violates the law or has any issues, then kindly mail us via contact us page to request the removal of the link.

The Profession of Widowhood

The Profession of Widowhood

File Size : 42,42 MB
Total View : 5166 Views
DOWNLOAD

The Profession of Widowhood explores how the idea of ‘true’ widowhood was central to pre-modern ideas concerning marriage and of female identity more genera

Finding Love After Loss

Finding Love After Loss

File Size : 69,69 MB
Total View : 8444 Views
DOWNLOAD

Guides readers through the emotions and practical concerns of finding love after the death of a partner. Romantic love, in all its permutations, forms one of th

Widowhood is Not a Profession

Widowhood is Not a Profession

File Size : 7,7 MB
Total View : 1529 Views
DOWNLOAD

NOT JUST FOR WIDOWS This book is beautiful for anyone who has lost someone so dear and so much a part of their lives that they become temporarily immobilized af