"You can't spend years with someone and just cast them aside": augmented identity in older British widows.
Widowhood forces women to reconstruct their identities. This article discusses how this reconstruction occurs. Interviews were conducted with 65 older widows exploring their experiences: Of those, 81% spoke about identity. This reconstruction can be understood in terms of continuing bonds with the deceased, loosening bonds, and personal growth. Women discussed these transitions in four ways: personal struggle, resistance to social expectations, empowerment, and using rhetoric. The reconstructed identity is not that of wife but rather that of an augmented identity of wife/widow. The tensions between how the widows see themselves, and how society sees them are explored.
Bennett
Kate Mary
KM
School of Psychology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK. kmb@liv.ac.uk
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001601:Bereavement; D004739:England; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D012649:Self Concept; D012933:Social Identification; D017805:Widowhood / Q000523:psychology*