Between Poverty and the Pyre: Moments in the History of Widowhood

by Jan N. Bremmer (Editor), Lourens P. Van Den Bosch (Editor)

Between Poverty and the Pyre examines the history of the experience of widowhood across different cultures. It brings together a collection of essays by historians, anthropologists and philologists. The book shows how difficult it is to define the 'typical' widow, as the experiences of these women have differed so widely, not simply because of their different time periods and locations, but also becuase of their varying legal and religious status and economic conditions.
The study is diverse with subjects ranging
*Hindu wives who followed their husbands to the pyre
*widows who were burned as witches
*and widows who had to become prostitutes to stay alive.
The book also explores Jesus's interest in widows and the experience of some well-known widows, such as Mohammed's first wife.

284 pages, Hardcover

First published March 23, 1995

About the author

Prof. em. Dr. Jan Nicolaas Bremmer (Ph.D., Free University Amsterdam, 1979) is Professor emeritus for Religious Studies in the Faculty for Religious Studies and Theology at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, where he twice held the post of Dean of the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies.

Reviews

[Paige · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains essays about widowhood through history, what it has meant to be a widow and the experiences of widows. It was a little heavy on the Dutch/English/French cultures for me; I did have several highlights in those sections, but for the most part I could have skipped them. Much more interesting to me was chapter 1 (public image of widows in ancient Israel), chapter 9 (Sati & widowhood in India), and chapter 10 (windows in Islam). Those are the only cultures covered besides European ones (and as far as European cultures go, they only cover England, the Dutch, and France in one essay).