Emotional and personal lives

Abstract

Many women without husbands were once conventionally married or in stable partnerships. When women find themselves on their own there is change and frequently trauma, new circumstances to deal with and new identities to forge. In these new circumstances, as with the discussion on the degrees of marriage, there are degrees of husband absence. In a psychological, as well as a physical sense, husbands are more or less present in the lives of lone women. Women’s adjustment involves processes of personal change, the construction of new ways of behaving and the creation of new avenues for the expression of companionship and sexuality. This chapter is about the emotional processes of becoming single and/or alone, the social psychology and the emotional survival of women at the margins and beyond marriage.