Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

A while ago I read a book about the million (don't remember the number- maybe half a million?) women who were left to eke out miserable lives after WW1 because so many men had died. Women were expected to marry but these were surplus, largely without sufficient means to live after they had been thrown out of the jobs they had been doing during the war. "The Lonely Passion of Miss Judith Hearne" comes to mind. What a book.

I do not know how to vote today and I also don't know whether to have another mammogram. Life is certainly about choices

Good morning, Rosalind.
In one of the books I mentioned it states that over 10% of war widows in the Great War were dead within 12 months of their husbands being killed. These were not old women.
A sobering statistic.

Hi everyone

I tend to think that the fate of WW1 widows is the direct result of women's poor status at the time - a woman without a husband weighed very little in society in general, she still depended so much on her husband. The period between the wars started to change the status of women and WW2 widows had a better chance to survive their drama.

Hi Pigale

I think that being emancipated helped to make word war2 women more resilient
since many of them worked for the first time and learned to be independent.I read a book some years go which suggested that is why many marriages failed when husbands returned to find their wives had changed. Pouring with rain but very humid dogs dont mind they have Air Con but cats are refusing to go out.

Goodness, that is one shocking statistic, rusty. I wonder why they died? Or should I say, what was the direct cause? There would have been many, I hope starvation wasn'tone of them.
Because I am so interested in family history, I have read many wills and probate indexes. It is pitiful how many single women left just a few hundred pounds, sometimes a lot less, all they had in the world to their spinster sister(s). Single women so desperate for work - I read of one who took a train to a place she'd never been (1920) to meet a man with a red sports car who said he was offering a job .... she was raped and murdered. Unfortunately one of my reatives had a similar car....however, he could prove he was a very long way elsewhere at the time.
It is a sobering thought that even at the start of the second word war my mother could no longer practice her profession (pharmacy), for which she was well qualified, after she married.

Hello Rosalind,

Why was that Ros, (about your mother I mean?)


Morning Doglet,

I agree with you - VERY hot here - 11am our time and already 31/32C ! Cats are out somewhere but will come back to the cool house this afternoon, as they did yesterday.

In the war, women did the jobs previously done solely by men;, they did them proficiently and well, but were expected to cede them back to the men on their return from battle.
I think widows were not only provided for inadequately, but psychologically found it difficult to cope on their own
Life wasn't as it is now.
Women hadn't fully learned to be independent in their own right.
I suspect that some died from inadequate food , heating etc., but maybe others just "gave up" the unequal struggle that had come upon them.

Most profession made women leave their employment once they were married it doesnt seem possible now that there were such archaic laws.it was deemed that the women would have children and for some peculiar reason would not be suitable for work

Good morning, Rusty!
What a terrible thunderstorm we had last night!
The dog insisted on sleeping with us and trembled throughout much of the night because the thunder roared so loudly!
Still dreich this morning - I went out in cagoule and wellies!
I've also been to vote.
It is done now...whatever the outcome.
I did consider standing outside the polling station and jumping up and down and shouting out a suitable slogan.............
but decorum won out and I came home!
The new lock is great, thanks. I was very impressed by the promptitude and the helpfulness and politeness of the locksmith,
I shall certainly recommend his shop.
I'm shortly going first to visit a sick friend, and then going out for "Ladies who Lunch".
What do you have planned for the day?
Will you watch any of the tennis?

Yes, I suppose it is the obvious answer to my question - for some reason it never occurred to me that such thing could happen when a woman actually had a good (qualified) job.

Having said that, I wonder if it might not still happen now, even though there is an anti-discrimination law - women are still synonyms of child-bearing and therefore time off work because of pregnancy leave, etc...