The Widowhood Explosion: WIDOWHOOD in the 21st Century

"I awoke to the first day of my widowhood as though it were the first day of a terminal illness. In the reactions of those around me I sensed that I had been diminished as if by some chronic disease - a condition from which I thought I would never again be free."...Helen WolfersToday 80% of all married women can expect to outlive their husbands, many for as long as twenty years If, as Shakespeare said, there are seven stages in the lives of men, for women of the modern Western world there is now an eighth - widowhood. Helen Wolfers' own lived experience of widowhood revealed a range of social "norms" that only widows experience. This led her to explore how widows have been treated throughout history and how society needs to adapt to the inevitable explosion in the number of widows that is coming our way.