Widow Remarriage Research Articles

Widows, Property, and Remarriage: Lessons from Glastonbury's Deverill Manors

In an attempt to understand the public and private roles of medieval women in the English countryside, historians have devoted growing attention to widows as villein tenants and transmitters of land in manorial communities. Villein women are often recorded in manorial sources as co-tenants and recipients of property rights on their husbands' deaths. Although in Common Law the widow's share ranged from one-third to one-half of a free husband's lands, the villein widow often received a right to life usage of the whole of the conjugal estate upon her husband's death as her “free bench.” The extensive property-holding rights of these villein widows have made them rich subjects for study of their legal, social, and economic status and activities.Case studies based on manorial estates, however, have often focused exclusively on the widow as a transmitter of property and have subordinated the study of widows within a framework governed by considerations of land markets and property transmission. Medieval historiography contrasts with studies of early-modern and modern populations that have put elements such as age at widowhood, number of dependents, social status, personal choice in connection with widow remarriage, and provisions for widows at the forefront of study. By connecting work on widows and the landmarket with these other concerns it is possible to study medieval peasant widows within broader comparative perspective.

Family Planning Programs and Fertility Transition in sub-Saharan Africa

The study of the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) entitled Population Dynamics of Sub-Saharan Africa shows convincingly that demographic transition is underway in Botswana Kenya and Zimbabwe and that it may also have begun in Nigeria Senegal Lesotho Namibia Swaziland and South Africa. Preliminary survey results suggest levels of use of modern contraceptive methods among married women around 26% in Namibia 15% in Ghana and 17% in urban Burkina Faso. In 1989-93 the total fertility rate dropped from 6.7 to 5.4 in Kenya and the prevalence of modern contraception rose from 18% to 28%. The theoretical framework which appears to have molded the NAS panels expectations for the future is handicapped by its lack of historical perspective. Both perspectives assume that economic development is a precondition for fertility decline: either by increasing demand for small family size or by weakening the resilient sociocultural barriers to use of modern contraceptives. The new evidence strongly suggests that economic hardship is contributing to the reduction of ideal family size in the region. The Kenyan onset of fertility decline and significant increases in contraceptive use coincided with the economic reversal of the early 1980s. African populations developed an efficient system for ensuring high fertility and maximizing child survival through spacing of births. Components of the system were very early marriage for women polygyny ensuring universal marriage for women and quick remarriage of widows. Colonization increased the pressure for high fertility by introducing cash crops in African agriculture and imposing forced labor upon rural populations. This increased the need for labor placing an additional upward pressure on fertility. Understanding the African social supports for high fertility as a rational response to historical circumstances and not a peculiar expression of African cultures and social organization is a necessary condition both for advancing demographic transition theory and for designing culturally sound family planning programs.

Social Pariahs and Domestic Drudges: Widowhood among Nineteenth Century Poona Brahmins

Throughout the nineteenth century the low status of women as exemplified by the plight of the child widow, condemned to a life of enforced celibacy, became the subject of a highly visible and widespread discussion. This debate and various stages of the accompanying movement for widow remarriage have been fairly well documented along with a detailed analysis of the issues raised in western India-the region which is the focus of my study on widowhood among the upper castes, especially brahmins.1 However, till now attention has been concentrated on the writing, speeches and actions of the men who were the visible participants in the debate. I propose here to shift the focus on how women understood the experience of widowhood and the issues they highlighted in order to expand the arena of our concerns. I shall use the writing of women themselves, mainly a set of essays on widowhood written in Marathi roughly around 19102 by widows who were inmates of the Poona Widows' and Orphans' Home instituted by D.K. Karve, and Ramabai Ranade's memoirs3 describing the domestic life of the Ranade household, to explore the lives of widows in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among the Poona brahmins. Even a cursory look at the issues around widowhood that men focussed on reveals how limited their discussion was and how little it was concerned with the material dimensions of widowhood among the high castes.4 In contrast to the men who tended to outline the dangerous consequences of enforced widowhood, particularly the effects of the repressed sexuality of widows upon society, or the cruelty involved in denying motherhood to them, the women showed considerable concern for the material and existential conditions of widowhood.5 The widows in particular addressed the economic vulnerability of the widow, and how the lack of property or other means of security put her in the power of male kin. While men almost never dwell on the labour performed by widows, the widows describe

Roman monogamy

Mating in Rome was polygynous; marriage was monogamous. In the years 18 BC and AD 9 the first Roman emperor, Augustus, backed the lex Julia and the lex Papia Poppaea, his “moral” legislation. It rewarded members of the senatorial aristocracy who married and had children; and it punished celibacy and childlessness, which were common. To many historians, that suggests Romans were reluctant to reproduce. To me, it suggests they kept the number of their legitimate children small to keep the number of their illegitimate children large. Marriage in Rome shares these features with marriage in other empires with highly polygynous mating: inheritances were raised by inbreeding; relatedness to heirs was raised by marrying virgins, praising and enforcing chastity in married women, and discouraging widow remarriage; heirs were limited— and inheritances concentrated—by monogamous marriage, patriliny, and primogeniture; and back-up heirs were got by divorce and remarriage, concubinage, and adoption. The “moral” legislation interfered with each of these. Among other things, it diverted inheritances by making widows remarry; it lowered relatedness to heirs by making adultery subject to public, rather than private, sanctions; and it dispersed estates by making younger sons and daughters take legitimate spouses and make legitimate heirs. Augustus' “moral” legislation, like canon law in Europe later on, was not, as it first appears, an act of reproductive altruism. It was, in fact, a form of reproductive competition.

Role of the social and cultural factors in human fertility in India

During the 1940s and 1950s in India, a relatively low level of fertility of 6–8 children per woman of unbroken marriage is implicated by the social and cultural factors; the fertility was probably depressed by 15–20 percent. An appraisal of the trends over the last 2–3 decades of the pertinent variables—age at marriage (an early and almost universal marriage); the widow remarriage rates; the induced abortion rate; postpartum infecundability (breastfeeding) and postpartum abstinence; the son preference; and the other sexual attitudes and taboos—suggests that during the late 1970s and early 1980s, the fertility enhancing and retarding forces were offsetting each other. But, over the next two decades, the variables responsible for enhancing the fertility level will play a more dominant role than the corresponding fertility-reducing factors. However, the role of induced abortion remains somewhat unclear. For any significant reductions in the national crude birth rate in India during the 1990s, the family planning efforts will have to be considerably accelerated.

Widows in African Societies: Choices and Constraints

Although widows constitute a quarter of the adult female population in many African societies, they have not been the focus of detailed, cross-cultural research. This is the first comparative anthropological study of widowhood in Africa, comprising ten case studies that cover a broad spectrum of societies in different parts of the continent. This volume shows clearly that widows are not passive objects of male transactions; they have interests and options, and make choices affecting their own lives. Ties to children, access to productive sources, and rights to housing are shown to have particular importance for widows' residential and marital decisions. This book provides a needed corrective both to the male perspective on kinship and to women's studies that deal almost exclusively with the adult married woman. In contrast to the traditional anthropological emphasis on widow remarriage and the functions such marriages have for the maintenance of marriage alliances, these papers deal with the women themselves and the quality of their lives. The introduction surveys the literature, examines the factors affecting the widows' strategies, and shows how accepted anthropological concepts of marriage, affinity, and community look different when considered from the perspective of widows. There is a foreword by Mariam K. Slater.

Sunset and Flowers: The Sexual Dimension of Foi Spatial Organization

This paper analyzes the structure of Foi ideology concerning space and motion. It is argued that to describe Foi spatiality one must not only consider how they symbolically construe cardinality; one must also examine the kinds of motion that link their various points of spatial orientation. This motion is not merely geographic, but also encompasses the social movements represented by marriage, death, and widow remarriage. It is demonstrated that Foi rituals of maiden and widow marriage encompass their spatial orientation and are phrased in the idioms of motion between cardinal points. These cardinal points thus have distinct sexual valences in Foi thought, since their marriage rituals are basically denotative of intersexual definition and mediation.

Marital fertility parameters of the Koya Dora of Orissa

India's tribal populations consistently exhibit the highest fertility levels of any segment of the national population. This historic fertility differential is commonly ascribed to a distinct tribal marital fertility pattern featuring a lower average age at marriage, high rates of widow remarriage, and high frequencies of divorce and remarriage. The present analysis of one tribal population, the Koya Dora of Koraput District, Orissa, uncovered none of these characteristics. Rather, it is proposed that differential mortality patterns underlie the present Koya Dora fertility differential.

Hypothèses sur la nuptialité en Angleterre aux XIIIe-XIVesiècles

Le médiéviste qui examine la nuptialité en Angleterre au début des Temps modernes découvre un phénomène culturel spécifique, qu'on retrouve rarement dans un contexte plus large. Rien n'oppose autant la société anglaise ou celle de l'Europe du Nord-Ouest aux autres sociétés traditionnelles que le régime matrimonial. Après la puberté, les femmes, dans presque toutes les sociétés traditionnelles, sont épouses ou veuves. Il n'en va pas de même en Angleterre ni dans une grande partie de l'Europe du Nord-Ouest, au début de l'époque moderne : la plupart des jeunes filles pubères restent célibataires entre 15 et 30 ans, un certain nombre d'entre elles atteignant la vieillesse sans avoir jamais été mariées. L'âge au mariage des hommes est également tardif— généralement entre 25 et 30 ans —, d'où un faible écart entre les âges des conjoints au premier mariage. Ce dernier trait complique les débats sur la nuptialité, car on l'observe dans d'autres sociétés traditionnelles qui ne connaissent pas le mariage tardif des femmes.

China's Marriage Law: a model for family responsibilities and relationships.

China's Marriage Law of 1981 is presented with a brief commentary. The law encompasses the responsibilities of spouses, parents, children, grandparents, and siblings to one another. The new law is contrasted with the 1950 Marriage Law, which prohibited such feudal practices of former times as arranged marriages and child betrothals. The 1981 law is concerned with equality and the lawful needs of women, children, and the aged. Family planning is encouraged. Divorce is made easier to obtain. Adoptees and stepchildren are provided for. The law provides a legislative model for personal relationships.

Novelist Sarat Chandra's perception of his Bengali home region: a literary geographic study

Sarat Chandra, a Bengali novelist of the first half of the 20th century, has described the landscape of his southern Bengal Region and has interacted through his characters a deep psychological response appropriate to the region and time. His work forms an excellent resource base to reconstruct the region of his time and establish phenomenological relationship through the feelings expressed by the characters of his novels. Sarat Chandra's Home Region is a stream-filled area with people's activity directed to agriculture, though Calcutta was already established as a center of westernization and modernization. Feudal exploitation, Zamindars' tyrrany, degenerative caste-division, child marriage, prohibition of widow's right to remarry, decaying extended family and losing person-to-person relationship of the traditional Bengal were some of the characteristics of the regional cultural geography. The cities, particularly Calcutta, had started to show signs of modernization: industries, equal rights to women, widow re-marriage and elitist ideas. “Bramho Samaj” was pioneering the social modernization. In summation, the Home Region, being a transitional stage of decaying feudalism and incipient industrialization, was engaged in a struggle between the old and the new, decadent traditional and modern, rural and urban, caste rigidity and liberal social customs, religious fanaticism and rationalism. Sarat Chandra's work, particularly, provides an inroad to understand the cultural aspects of his Home Region.

The debate on widow remarriage and polygamy: Aspects of moral change in Nineteenth‐century Bengal and Yorubaland

(1979). The debate on widow remarriage and polygamy: Aspects of moral change in Nineteenth‐century Bengal and Yorubaland. The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History: Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 128-148.

Reply to Brown

A number of Carolyn Brown's criticisms deal with my choice of items for inclusion in the factor analysis out of which the dimensions of Sanskritization were generated. I had initially planned to include an item on actual incidence of widow remarriage. However, it was necessary to replace that item with one dealing with attitudes toward widow remarriage since pretests of the behavioral item showed that even among low castes widow remarriage is not common enough to warrant inclusion of such an item in the interview schedule. The difficulty I experienced with the widow remarriage item illustrates the broader problem of whether to work toward a definition of Sanskritization in terms of theological differences alone or in terms of more general norms and values which differentiate between high and low castes. In agreement with White (1968) that full assessment of the religious factor requires examination not only of theological differences but of any and all norms and values which differentaite religious bodies, I included a broad range of items in the Sanskritic pool. In the end, all items in the study which could have differentiated among the life styles of high and low castes in preBritish India, ie, in pre-Western times, were included in the Sanskritization pool. The items which failed to meet this criterion-eg, those dealing with newspaper reading, ownership of Western-style clothing, etc. -were included in a separate factor analysis, not reported in my paper, aimed at exploring the dimensions of Westernization. The item dealing with willingness to borrow to meet festival expenses satisfies my criterion for inclusion in the Sanskritic pool as does the item concerning trust in belief vs. science, as science, if not experimentation, has ancient roots in India. (see Weber, 1958: 13-14).

Comment on Hertel's "Dimensions of Sanskritization"

W must all agree with Bradley Hertel's contention in March, 1973, issue that only after phenomenon of Sanskritization is clearly defined can one hope to test hypotheses concerning Sanskritization as process. We must welcome all attempts to operationalize whether by factor analysis, as in this study, or by other methods. Studies of Sanskritization have indeed been impressionistic, as author states, and concept itself used loosely. This study, however, falls short of its mark for want of clarification of its starting premises. I would make note of interchangeability, in this study, of dyads and non-Sanskritic and and (p. 22). Hertel's definition of Sanskritization as the adoption of life styles of ritually high Hindu is a conventional and useful one, though in need of operationalization. The opposite of being Sanskritized is, logically, acceptance of one's caste dharma in schema which for lower castes does not include certain classical practices. Thus, for example, a typical practice is forbidding of widow remarriage; this rule was traditionally not practiced by low castes. A low or middle caste seeking to elevate its status would begin to keep its widows single. In a study of Sanskritization, items in questionnaire should be items which could be answered yes or no from within schema. With some of items in Hertel's questionnaire, this is case; many of items, however, rather than opposing Sanskritic vs. non-Sanskritic, actually are opposing and modern, which is something else again entirely. In his discussion of dimension of efficacy (p. 22) he categorizes poles of continuum as being traditional (ie, 'fatalism) and modern (ie, optimism), and indeed most of items would not be relevant discriminations within schema; e.g., Progress depends on science vs. beliefs. It is questionable whether fatalism as operationalized in items on questionnaire would be genuinely Sanskritic in any case (eg, see Potter, 1963), but in this study fatalistic responses are posited as response, and one must wonder how Dhobis and Chamars, lowest castes, also come out most

The Widow and Widower and Remarriage: Selected Findings

The Widow and Widower and Remarriage: Selected Findings

Widow remarriages in some rural areas of Northern India

It is commonly believed thai widows belonging to high-caste Hindus in India do not remarry because of various social restrictions imposed on their remarriage. Though some information on widowhood and widow remarriages is available, there is need for more detailed information. A study, carried out by the author, of 1 percent of the rural households in Mathura and Saharanpur districts in Uttar Pradesh and in Rohtak district in Panjab has brought out that nearly SO percent of the ever-widowed are remarried. The survey covered 6,211 households, of which 887 were Muslim and the remaining were Hindu.Of the ever-widowed females, 84 percent in Saharanpur, 25 percent in Rohtak, and 19 percent in Mathura were found to have remarried. With a view to finding out whether differences in widow remarriage percentages by districts were real or were due to variations in the distribution of the ever-widowed females by age, occupation, caste, and the number of living children, the standardized widow remarriage rates were obtained. The population of Saharanpur district was taken to be the standard population. As a result of standardization for age, number of living children, and caste, the difference narrowed down considerably; and, while the widow remarriage percentage was 34.2 in Saharanpur. it was found to be 334 in Rohtak and 31.1 in Mathura. A 3 percent lower figure for Mathura district could be a result of the Brahminic influence.Widow remarriages were found to be very common among younger widows, since nearly 90 percent of those below age 16 and 80 percent of those in the age group 15-19 were remarried. Also, roughly 80 percent of those who did not have a child at the time of their widowhood were remarried. But the per-centage of remarried widows declined with an increase in age and in the number of living children. The percentage of widow remarriages was highest among the Muslims-between 35 and 37-because they put no restrictions on such remarriages. Among the Hindus, the lower castes, such as Chamars, Bhangis, and artisan castes, had the highest percentage of widow remarriages-around 30-because of the absence of social restrictions on such remarriages. Among the high-caste Hindus, the Jats (one of the warrior castes) had the highest percentage of remarried widows. The reason for this is that they have socially permitted such remarriages. Widow remarriages, though on a smaller scale, were also found prevailing among other warrior castes, such as Gujjars, Ahirs, and Rajputs. Among other high-caste Hindus, such as Brahmins, Banias, Khatris, and Aroras, cases of widow remarriages were very few-only around 7 percent. This is the result of a long standing religious sanction against such remarriages.On the basis of our data, we are inclined to say that in the rural areas of northern India no marked change in the social position regarding widow remarriages is noticeable.

The Origin and Enactment of the Indian Age of Consent Bill, 1891

The Indian social reform movement in the nineteenth century, like the political reform movement, remained unorganized on an all-India basis until the 1880's. Local groups functioned throughout the country in many cases along similar lines, but without regular and specific knowledge of each other. Virtually the only effort for social reform well publicized throughout the country had been Vidyasagar's Widow Remarriage movement, which however was never nationally organized and which found local support only when a reformer felt inclined to press for it; the founder himself lost interest in the cause long before his death in 1891. Unlike the political reformers, the social reformers gave no evidence, so far as the present writer knows, of concern about the absence of a national organization to direct and stimulate their activities. If it had any strength, such an organization would, in fact, embarrass them into a unity of principles and methods for which, before 1880, they were quite unprepared.

Workmen's Compensation Act. Persons Entitled to Compensation. Effect of Widow's Remarriage

Workmen's Compensation Act. Persons Entitled to Compensation. Effect of Widow's Remarriage