That lunch with my friend was the first time I had properly considered the word ‘widow.’ I had never thought of myself as one. Jane with her husband Philip in 2015If these women’s social circle once centred on couples, they are also discovering the invisible forcefield that divides the married from the newly single. Widows have statistically fewer opportunities to remarry – a fact pointed out to me forthrightly by a 93-year-old former Law Lord I met at a party. We know lots of widows. The most savage aspect of this hierarchy concerns widows and childless single women over 50 who are confined to rundown places on the edges of towns called Widowlands.

Source: Daily Mail May 29, 2021 23:03 UTC