Sylvia Plath - Fanny Cradock - Patti Davis - Courtney Love - Joyce Carol Oates - Aubrey de Vere - Samuel Richardson - John Gay - Deuteronomy 25:5 - I Timothy 5:1-15
Widow. The word consumes itself. Sylvia Plath, Widow, 1971
I was widowed before I was seventeen. And pregnant. Widow’s weeds and a bun in the oven. Fanny Cradock, interview The Parkinson Show 1972
I’m part of the tribe who have said goodbye to one parent and are feeling a sense of responsibility for the one who remains – in my case, my mother. How do I make her time smoother, happier? How do I try to ease her, a widow, away from the dark well of grief without dishonoring the necessity of that grief? Patti Davis
I’m ultimately a widow and a single mother, who’s not even getting to be a mother right now. I am so alone, it’s freaky. Courtney Love
Most people think that a widow is inhabiting some elegiac world of – it’s like Mozart’s Requiem Mass. You know, it’s very beautiful and elevated thoughts and some measure of dignity. I didn’t have that experience at all. I had one pratfall after another. Joyce Carol Oates
Memory, in widow’s weeds, with naked feet stands on a tombstone. Aubrey de Vere
A widow's refusal of a lover is seldom so explicit as to exclude hope. Samuel Richardson
The comfortable estate of widowhood, is the only hope that keeps up a wife’s spirits. John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera, 1728
If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. Deuteronomy 25:5
Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren;
The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.
Honour widows that are widows indeed.
But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents: for that is good and acceptable before God.
Now she that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day.
But she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.
And these things give in charge, that they may be blameless.
But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man.
Well reported of for good works; if she have brought up children, if she have lodged strangers, if she have washed the saints’ feet, if she have relieved the afflicted, if she have diligently followed every good work.
But the younger widows refuse: for when they have begun to wax wanton against Christ, they will marry;
Having damnation, because they have cast off their first faith.
And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.
I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.
For some are already turned aside after Satan. I Timothy 5:1-15