| | | | | | | There are widows and widows; there are those who are | bereaved and those who are released; those who lose their | support and those whose chains are broken; those who are | sunk in desolation and those who wake up into freedom. | Of the first we will not speak. Theirs is a sorrow too | sacred to be publicly handled even with sympathy; but | the second demand no such respectful reticence. The | widow who is no sooner released from one husband than | she plots for another, and the widow who leaps into | liberty over the grave of a gaoler, not a lover, are fair | game enough. They have always been favourite subjects | whereon authors may exercise their wits; and while men | are what they are ~~ laughing animals apt to see the | humour lying in incongruity, and with a spice of the devil | to sharpen that same laughter into satire ~~ they will | remain favourite subjects, tragic as the state is when | widowhood is deeper than mere outward condition. | There are many varieties of the widow and all are not | beautiful. For one, there is the widow who is bent on | re-marrying whether men like it or not; | | that thing of prey who goes about the world seeking | whom she may devour; that awful creature who bears | down on her victims with a vigour in her assaults which | puts to flight the popular fancy about the weaker sex and | the natural distribution of power. No hawk poised over a | brood of hedge birds, no shark cruising steadily towards a | shoal of small fry, no piratical craft sailing under a free | flag and accountable to no law save success, was ever | more formidable to the weaker things pursued than is the | hawk widow to men when she is bent on re-marrying. | She knows so much! there is not a manœuvre by which a | victory can be stolen that she has not mastered and she is | not afraid of even the most desperate measures. When | she has once struck, he would be a clever man and a | strong one who should escape her. Generally left but | meagerly provided for in worldly goods ~~ else her game | would not be difficult ~~ she makes up for her financial | poverty by her wealth of bold resources, and by the | courage with which she takes her own fortunes in hand | and, with her own, those of her more eligible masculine | associates. She is a woman of purpose and lives for an | end; and that end is remarriage, with the most favourable | settlement that can be obtained by her lawyer from his. If | fate has dealt hardly by her ~~ though, may be, | compassionately by her successive spouses ~~ and has | landed her in the widowed state twice or thrice, she is in | nowise daunted and as little abashed. She merely refits | after a certain time of anchorage, and goes out into the | open again | | for a repetition of her chance. She has no notion of a | perpetuity of weeds, and, though she may have cleared | her half century with a margin besides, thinks the | suggestive orange-blossoms of the bride infinitely more | desirable than the fruitless heliotrope of the widow. If | one husband is taken, she remembers the old proverb, and | reflects on the many, quite as good, who are left | potentially subject to her choice. And somehow she | manages. It has been said that any woman can marry any | man if she determines to do so, and follows on the line of | her determination with tenacity and common-sense. | The hawk widow exemplifies the truth of this saying. | She determines upon marriage; and she usually succeeds; | the question being one of victim only, not of sacrifice. | One has to fall to her share; there is no help for it; and the | whole contest is, which shall it be? which is strongest to | break her bonds? which craftiest to slip out of them? | which most resolute not to bear them from the beginning? | This the straggling covey must settle among themselves | the best way they can. When the hawk pounces down | upon its quarry, it is | But all cannot be saved. One has to be caught; and the | choice is determined partly by chance and partly by | relative strength. When the widow of experience and | resolve bears down on her prey, | the result is equally certain. Floundering avails nothing; | struggling and splashing are just as futile; one among the | crowd has to come to the slaughter, | | like Mrs. Bond's ducks, and to assist at his own | immolation. The best thing he can do is to make a | handsome surrender, and to let the world of men and | brothers believe he rather likes his position than not. | But there are pleasanter types of the re-marrying widow | than this. There is the widow of the Wadman kind, who | has outlived her grief and is not disinclined to a repetition | of the matrimonial experiment, if asked humbly by an | experimenter after her own heart. But she must be asked | humbly that she may grant in a pretty, tender, womanly | way ~~ if not quite so timidly as a girl, yet as becomingly | in her degree, and with that peculiar fascination which | nothing but the combination of experience and modesty | can give. The widow of the Wadman kind is no creature | of prey, neither shark nor hawk; at the worst she is but a | cooing dove, making just the sweetest little noise in the | world, the tenderest little call to indicate her whereabouts, | and to show that she is lonely and feels a-cold. She sits | close, waiting to be found, and does not ramp and dash | about like the hawk sisterhood; neither does she pretend | that she is unwilling to be found, still less deny that a soft | warm nest, well lined and snugly sheltered, is better than | a lonely branch stretching out comfortless and bare into | the bleak wide world. She, too, is almost sure to get what | she wants, with the advantage of being voluntarily chosen | and not unwillingly submitted to. | This is the kind of woman who is always mildly | | but thoroughly happy in her married life; unless indeed | her husband should be a brute, which heaven forefend. | She lives in peace and bland contentment while the fates | permit, and when he dies she buries him decently and | laments him decorously; but she thinks it folly to spend | her life in weeping by the side of his cold grave, when her | tears can do no good to either of them. Rather she thinks | it a proof of her love for him, and the evidence of how | true was her happiness, that she should elect to give him a | successor. Her blessed experience in the past has made | her trustful of the future; and because she has found one | man faithful she thinks that all are Abdiels. As a rule, | this type of woman does find men pleasant; and by her | own nature she ensures domestic happiness. She is | always tenderly, and never passionately, in love, even | with the husband she has loved the best. She gives in to | no excesses to the right nor to the left. Her temperament | is of that serene moonlight kind which does not fatigue | others nor wear out its possessor. Without ambition or | the power to fling herself into any absorbing occupation, | she lives only to please and be pleased at home; and if | she be not a wife, wearing her light fetters lovingly and | proud that she is fettered, she is nothing. As some | women are born mothers and others are born nuns, so is | the Wadman woman a born wife, and shines in no other | character nor capacity. But in this she excels; and | knowing | | this, she sticks to her role, | how frequently so ever the protagonist may be | changed. | | There are widows, however, who have no thought nor | desire for remaining anything but widows ~~ who have | gained the worth of the world in their condition. | ! says the French wife, eyeing askance. | Can the most exacting woman ask for more? And truly | such a one is in the most enviable position possible to a | woman, supposing always that she has not lost her | husband the man she loved. If she has lost only the man | who sat by right at the same hearth with herself ~~ | perhaps the man who quarreled with her across the ashes | ~~ she has lost her burden and gained her release. | The cross of matrimony lies heavy on many a woman | who never takes the world into her confidence, and who | bears in absolute silence what she has not the power to | cast from her. Perhaps her husband has been a man of | note, a man of learning, of elevated station, a political or | a philanthropic power. She alone knew the fretfulness, | the petty tyranny, the miserable smallness at home of the | man of large repute whom his generation conspired to | honour, and whose public life was a mark for the future | to date by. When he died the press wrote his eulogy and | his elegy; but his widow, when she put on her weeds, | sang softly in her own heart a pćan to the great King of | Freedom, and whispered to herself Laudamus with a sigh | of unutterable | | relief. To such a woman widowhood has no | sentimental regrets. She has come into possession of the | goods for which perhaps she sold herself; she is young | enough to enjoy the present and to project a future; she | has the free choice of a maid and the free action of a | matron, as no other woman has. She may be courted and | she need not be chaperoned, nor yet forced to accept. | Experience has mellowed and enriched her; for though | the asperities of her former condition were sharp while | they lasted, they have not permanently roughened nor | embittered her. Then the sense of relief gladdens, while | the sense of propriety subdues, her; and the delicate | mixture of outside melancholy, tempered with internal | warmth, is wonderfully enticing. Few men know how to | resist that gentle sadness which does not preclude the | sweetest sympathy with pleasures in which she may not | join ~~ with happiness which is, alas ~ denied her. It | gives an air of such profound unselfishness; it asks so | mutely, so bewitchingly, for consolation! | Even a hard man is moved at the sight of a pretty young | widow in the funereal black of her first grief, sitting apart | with a patient smile and eyes cast meekly down, as one | not of the world though in it. Her loss is too recent to | admit of any thought of reparation; and yet what man | does not think of that time of reparation? and if she be | more than usually charming in person and well dowered | in purse, what man does not think of himself as the best | repairer she could take? Then, as time goes on and she | glides | | gracefully into the era of mitigated grief, how beautiful is | her whole manner, how tasteful her attire! The most | exquisite colours of the prismatic scale look garish beside | her dainty tints, and the untempered mirth of happy girls | is coarse beside her subdued admission of moral sunshine. | Greys as tender as a dove's breast; regal purples which | have a glow behind their gloom; stately silks of somber | black softly veiled by clouds of gauzy white or | brightened with the 'dark light' of sparkling jet ~~ all | speak of passing time and the gradual blooming of the | spring after the sadness of the winter; all symbolize the | flowers which are growing on the sod that covers the dear | departed; all hint at a melting of the funereal gloom into | the starlight of a possible bridal. She begins too to take | pleasure in the old familiar things of life. She steals into | a quiet back seat at the Opera; she just walks through a | quadrille; she sees no harm in a fete or flower-show, if | properly companioned. Winter does not last for ever; and | a life-long mourning is a wearisome prospect. So she | goes through her degrees in accurate order, and comes | out at the end radiant. | For when the faint shadows cast by the era of mitigated | grief fade away, she is the widow par | excellence ~~ the blooming widow, young, rich, | gay, free; with the world on her side, her fortune in her | hand, the ball at her foot. She is the freest woman alive; | freer even than any old maid to be found. Freedom, | indeed, comes to the old maid | | when too late to enjoy it; at least in certain directions; for | while she is young she is necessarily in bondage, and | when parents and guardians leave her at liberty, the world | and Mrs. Grundy take up the reins and hold them pretty | tight. But the widow is as thoroughly emancipated from | the conventional bonds which confine the free action of a | maid as she is from those which fetter the wife; and only | she herself knows what she has lost and gained. She bore | her yoke well while it pressed on her. It galled her but | she did not wince; only when it was removed, did she | become fully conscious of how great had been the burden, | from her sense of infinite relief through her freedom. The | world never knew that she had passed under the harrow; | probably therefore it wonders at her cheerfulness, with | the dear departed scarce two years dead; and some say | how sweetly resigned she is, and others how unfeeling. | She is neither. She is simply free after having lived in | bondage; and she is glad in consequence. But she is | dangerous. In fact, she is the most dangerous of all | women to men's peace of mind. She does not want to | marry again ~~ does not mean to marry again for many | years to come, if ever; granted; but this does not say that | she is indifferent to admiration or careless of men's | society. And being without serious intentions herself, she | does not reflect that she may possibly mislead and | deceive others who have no such cause as she has to | beware of the pleasant folly of love and its results. | | In the exercise of her prerogative as a free woman, able to | cultivate the dearest friendships with men and fearlessly | using her power, she entangles many a poor fellow's heart | which she never wished to engage more than platonically, | and crushes hopes which she had not the slightest | intention to raise. Why cannot men be her friends? she | asks, with a pretty, pleading look ~~ a tender kind of | despair at the wrong-headedness of the stronger sex. But, | tender as she is, she does not easily yield even when she | loves. The freedom she has gone through so much to | gain she does not rashly throw away; and if ever the day | comes when she gives it up into the keeping of another | ~~ and for all her protestations it comes sometimes ~~ | the man to whom she succumbs may congratulate himself | on a victory more flattering to his vanity, and more | complete in its surrender of advantages, than he could | have gained over any other woman. Belle or heiress, of | higher rank or of greater fame than himself, no unmarried | woman could have made such a sacrifice in her marriage | as did this widow of means and good looks, when she | laid her freedom, her joyous present and potential future, | in his hand. He will be lucky if he manages so well that | he is never reproached for that sacrifice ~~ if his wife | never looks back regretfully to the time when she was | widow ~~ if there are no longer glances forward to | possibilities ahead, mingled with sighs at the difficulty of | retracing a step when made. On the whole, if a woman | can live without love, or with | | nothing stronger than a tender sentimental friendship, | widowhood is the most blissful state she can attain. But | if she be of a loving nature and fond of home, finding her | own happiness in the happiness of others and indifferent | to freedom ~~ thinking, indeed, that feminine freedom is | only another word for desolation ~~ she will be miserable | until she has doubled her experience and carried on the | old into the new.