Being a widow in old-time Phoenix


With the death of my father, and of Kobe Bryant, in the last few days, my mind has been straying to the thought of being a widow.

It really is a bias that we tend to define women by their relationships with other people, and men by their careers. I hadn't realized that I had that bias until I read an article in the newspaper many years ago that gave a sample headline of "Mother of Five Wins Nobel Peace Price" whereas for a man it would be more like "Business Executive Wins Nobel Peace Prize". And maybe that's why it's hard for me to think of a man as a widower (and I do know a few) but easy for me to think of a woman as a widow.

Times have changed. I came of age in the era when women threw off the shackles of defining themselves by their husbands. So many women didn't take their husband's last name that it often got confusing for me. Come to think of it, it was always confusing for me - the return address stickers that my mom had didn't even have her first name, they said "Mrs. George H. Hall". I remember asking her about that, which seemed to surprise her.

Back in the 1970s, we were taught to call our teacher either "Mr" or "Ms" (pronounced "mizzzz"), which meant that whether they were single, married, widowed, or divorced, we had no idea. But in old-time Phoenix, women would have been deeply offended if you used the wrong title for them. In fact, calling a woman "Widow Jones", which sounds weird now, would have been perfectly acceptable.

By the way, my grandmother, who was born in 1901, would often use the expression "grass widow" in a derisive way for a woman who was divorced. Being divorced wasn't the same as being widowed, and the social standing of being married still continued after the death of a husband. The world of women, and their etiquette, is about the most complex thing I've ever seen, so I won't try to explain it, I'm just telling you what I've heard.

Women live longer than men, and that's always been true. And women in old-time Phoenix who chose not to remarry after the death of their husband still carried the social status that they earned by being a "respectable married woman". Nowadays, of course, marriage is not seen that way anymore, but in old-time Phoenix you would being showing respect to got the title right: Miss Jones, Mrs. Jones, Widow Jones.

Thank you for remembering with me, and showing respect.
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