In Kenya as elsewhere in Africa, women are economically deprived. This situation is exacerbated when a husband, who has been the sole bread winner, dies leaving his wife with no financial support to look after herself and the children. Traditionally, these women were cared for by levirate marriage. With the coming of modernization, care of widows has dramatically changed. It is in this understanding this study was undertaken to examine how the ACK Diocese of Nairobi, can explore some practical ways and means of dealing with issues affecting widows and address the cultural regulations that oppress, dehumanize and victimize them in the society and in the church. This thesis further examines how an African woman, living in a changing world can continue with her life once widowed. This is considering the fact that she is living in a male dominated society. After the first chapter, which provides background information, motivation and the research focus, the study proceeds with an investigation of what widows experience after their husband's death. Through the formal interviews the study asserts that widows undergo cultural marginalisation, emotional stress, financial insecurity and lack of meaning, control and purpose oflife. Then the study proceeds to a theological reflection on this experience in light of the word of God and the church. It points that it was a biblical tradition in the Old Testament and the New Testament to care for widows. The church is challenged to continue with this and redefine its original goal, at same the time rebuking the injustices in the society. In response to the experience of widows and the theological reflection, the thesis argues that there is need for a holistic four-fold ministry to widows in the ACK Diocese of Nairobi. It is argued that the church should be involved in the role of advocacy, counselling, empowerment and job creation. This is to help them regain their dignity, self-esteem, and become self-reliant. The thesis concludes with a set of practical proposals for the Anglican Diocese of Nairobi. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

This thesis compares the status of upper-class widows in England to Colonial America. The common law traditions in England established dower, which was also used in the American colonies. Dower guaranteed widows the right to one-third of the land and property of her husband. Jointure was instituted in England in 1536 and enabled men to bypass dower and settle a yearly sum on a widow. The creation of jointure was able to proliferate in England due to the cash-centered economy, but jointure never manifested itself in Colonial America because of the land centered economy. These two types of inheritance form the background for the argument that upper-class women in Colonial America had more legal and economical freedoms than their brethren in England.

No description available.

Widows and their fatherless children are commonly perceived to be the most deserving category amongst the poor. The frequent exhortations in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old Testament clearly and constantly reminded the early Christian Church of the divine expectations God had enjoined upon them in this matter. There appears to be no obstacle, theological or moral, to perceiving them as worthy recipients of Christian charity and pastoral care. Yet the results of this study show that in the early centuries of the church the fatherless family was invisible to its leadership. They were not perceived as needy people deserving support but were regarded as a problem, rather than real human beings. Ambiguous material in the Gospels and in the other writings of the New Testament, where references to them are sparse and sometimes unsympathetic, allowed creativity of interpretation to occur permitting evasion of the giving of straightforward support, and instead facilitated greater management and control by the clergy. Their informal self-organisation and methods of mutual self-help were increasingly eroded. The only extensive study of the support of the fatherless family in Roman society and the Church is the four volume habilitation thesis of Jens-Uwe Krause, Witwen und Waisen im Römischen Reich, published between 1994-1995. This large study deals with the long period 200 BCE – 600 CE diachronically. Apart from the 2009 collection of essays edited by Sabine R. Hübner and David M. Ratzan. Growing up Fatherless in Antiquity, which deals mainly with elite, political, and literary figures rather than the poor, little else has been written on the fatherless child in antiquity. The issue of whether 1 Timothy 5:3-16 and similar later material are referring to an ‘Order’ of widows, typified by Bonnie Thurston’s 1989 book, The Widows: A Women's Ministry in the Early Church, has proved a major diversion. Recent work by Steven Friesen and Bruce Longenecker reinforce the conception of the composition of the early church as being primarily that of the poor. My focus is on the neglected area of pastoral care of the poor fatherless family within the earliest church, concentrating on the first 300 years CE. The existence of the poor fatherless family created financial, social and moral difficulties for the church leadership, which forced them to devise novel ways to deal with the duties encumbering them. How could they control these sexually experienced, but vulnerable and dependent, women with their young children? One way was to re-define them as something else. The first method, and the most successful, was to split them up into two distinct groups, old people and full orphans, each requiring a different approach. Another strategy was to make widows represent someone or something other than themselves. Their alter egos will be shown to be human, literary or theological. The third trend observed was an effort towards extinguishing the voice of women. If women and fatherless children were to epitomise something else other than themselves, then their own self-perceived reality had to be kept well hidden. They could not be allowed to speak or socialise. If they did speak their words had to be rendered unheard or to be of no effect. Finally, the young fatherless children of widows have no voice and consequently have been rendered invisible. They do not appear in the Gospels. In the rest of the New Testament and the writings of the early church fathers, they receive little more than a cursory mention as part of a literary trope, or are transformed into barely mentioned full orphans.

Why do some people experience more emotional distress than others after spousal-death? And can we predict who will struggle more than others? While many will exhibit resilience in the wake of a bereavement, a small but notable portion ranging from 7-10% (Maciejewski, Maercker, Boelen & Prigerson, 2016; Nielsen et al., 2017) experience a prolonged period of elevated symptoms and distress (Bonanno et al. 2007; Prigerson et al., 2009). Although there is marked individual variation in the grief course, little is yet known about the mechanisms underlying grief that endures, and why some people will struggle more than others after experiencing the death of a spouse. Compelling findings have linked deficits in emotion regulation with the development of psychopathology (Buss, Davidson, Kalin, & Goldsmith, 2004; Gehricke, & Shapiro, 2000), and the study of one particular form of emotion regulation, contextually responsive emotional responding, may be particularly promising in predicting divergent individual differences in the grief course following the death of a spouse (Bonanno & Burton, 2013). Recent bereavement studies have provided preliminary evidence linking contextually responsive emotional expression to grief-related adjustment. However, these studies suffer from notable methodological limitations, such as the use of limited measures of emotional expression or cross-sectional design. The current study will use a longitudinal design to investigate whether individual differences in emotional expressions of happiness and contempt, across varied contexts, can predict long-term adjustment and psychopathology. In addition, we will employ a standardized facial coding system to investigate contextually unresponsive facial behaviors, which we operationalize as the mismatch between facial expression of emotion and four systematically varying idiographic contexts.

The death of a spouse is one of the most profound and life-altering events adults will ever experience. While the experience of spousal bereavement is traumatic at any time, there is evidence to support the fact that young women who are widowed experience unique challenges. The purpose of studying young widows was to understand the meaning of spousal bereavement for individual participants. The research tradition of phenomenology was chosen to inform the study, and the guiding question became what is the lived experience of spousal bereavement for young women? The study participants were five women who were under the age of 45 at the time of their husbands death. The experiences of these young widows were illuminated through stories and reflections on the journey of a young widow. Five themes emerged from their experiences. Young widows grieve both the loss of a companion and the death of their dreams. Accompanying these losses can be the challenges of single parenthood, the need for career, financial and lifestyle changes, and the readjustment to life as a single adult. Increased understanding from the perspective of the bereaved widow, along with strategies and interventions for nurses working with this group of women, will provide nurses and health care professionals with skills to better assist this client population.

The death of a spouse is one of the most profound and life-altering events adults will ever experience. While the experience of spousal bereavement is traumatic at any time, there is evidence to support the fact that young women who are widowed experience unique challenges. The purpose of studying young widows was to understand the meaning of spousal bereavement for individual participants. The research tradition of phenomenology was chosen to inform the study, and the guiding question became what is the lived experience of spousal bereavement for young women? The study participants were five women who were under the age of 45 at the time of their husbands death. The experiences of these young widows were illuminated through stories and reflections on the journey of a young widow. Five themes emerged from their experiences. Young widows grieve both the loss of a companion and the death of their dreams. Accompanying these losses can be the challenges of single parenthood, the need for career, financial and lifestyle changes, and the readjustment to life as a single adult. Increased understanding from the perspective of the bereaved widow, along with strategies and interventions for nurses working with this group of women, will provide nurses and health care professionals with skills to better assist this client population.

Darbo objektas – lietuvių liaudies dainos bei raudos, kuriose vaizduojamas našlių ir našlaičių gyvenimas. Darbe keliamas tikslas – atskleisti našlių ir našlaičių paveikslus bei pateikti jų gyvenimo aplinkybių traktuotę lietuvių liaudies dainose ir raudose. Šio tikslo siekiama analizuojant dainų ir raudų tekstus, labiausiai atspindinčius našlių ir našlaičių nedalią; išskiriant pagrindines našlių ir našlaičių šeimos kūrimo ypatybes; atskleidžiant mirusiųjų kėlimo ir našlių bei našlaičių komunikacijos su jais motyvus; išsiaiškinant našlių ir našlaičių sąsajas su gegute; palyginant našlių ir našlaičių vaizdavimo ypatybes lietuvių liaudies dainose bei raudose. Našlių ir našlaičių nedalios raiška dainose bei raudose atskleidžiama aptariant jų išorę, kuri juos išskiria iš likusios bendruomenės. Sunkios dalios palengvinimui siratos užtarimo ir paguodos dažniausiai ieško gamtoje, nes aplinkiniai žmonės yra atšiaurūs, abejingi jų negandoms. Skausmą ir širdgėlą našlaičiai išreiškia verkdami, tačiau jų ašaros yra nepaprastos – turinčios gyvybinių arba griaunančiųjų galių. Mirusių artimųjų stoka, išreikšta dainose ir raudose, jaučiama įvairiose gyvenimo srityse: tarpusavio santykiuose, materialinėje gerovėje, vaikų auklėjime. Dainose apie šeimos kūrimą atskleidžiamas neigiamas požiūris į vedybinius partnerius našlius. Sakoma, jog jie yra seni, nemokantys darbų dirbti, išdalinę savo meilę, todėl žiaurūs ir pikti. Našlaitės kaip galimos sutuoktinės patrauklumas didinamas idealizuojant jos... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The MA Thesis aims at analyzing Lithuanian folk songs and laments in which the life of orphans and widowers is presented. The main purpose of the work is to reveal the role of widows and orphans in Lithuanian folk songs and laments by distinguishing the most characteristic features of expression. The purpose is achieved by analyzing the aspects of Lithuanian folk songs and laments which reveal the infelicity of widows and orphans in the most evident way. The substantial aspects of the work are as follows: the detachment of main peculiarities of family formation by widows and orphans; the revelation of the motives of the resurrection and the role of widows and orphans; widows and orphans’ links with the cuckoo; the comparison of the characteristics of widows and orphans in Lithuanian folk songs and laments. The expression of widows and orphans infelicity in Lithuanian folk songs and folk laments is achieved by analyzing the appearance of widows and orphans; the appearance that distinguishes them from the rest of the community. Widows and orphans usually cry when they want to express pain and grief. However, their tears are supernatural, filled with vital or destructive powers. The grief of loss of close people is felt in all stages of life: in the relationships with each other, in the material welfare, in the children upbringing. Lithuanian folk songs about the family formation reveals negative attitude towards the widowers. According to folk wisdom, such people are cruel and... [to full text]

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of West Florida, 2008. / Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 214 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-76).