Lourens P. van den Bosch is Associate Professor of History of Religion at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. He is the author of Atharvaveda-parisista: Chapters 21–29, Introduction, Translation and Notes (1978) and Inleiding in het hindoeïsme (1990). Jan N.Bremmer is Professor of History of Religion at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. He is the author of The Early Greek Concept of the Soul (1983) and Greek Religion (1994), co-author of Roman Myth and Mythography (1987), editor of Interpretations of Greek Mythology (1987), From Sappho to de Sade: Moments in the History of Sexuality (1989) and A Dictionary of Ancient Religions (1995), and co-editor of A Cultural History of Gesture (1991).

• Preface 1 WIDOWS’ WORLDS Representations and realities 2 THE PUBLIC IMAGE OF THE WIDOW IN ANCIENT ISRAEL 3 PAUPER OR PATRONESS The widow in the Early Christian Church 4 WIDOWS IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND 5 WIDOWS AND THE LAW The legal position of widows in the Dutch Republic during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 6 ‘EUROPEAN’ WIDOWS IN THE DUTCH EAST INDIES Their legal and social position 7 WOMEN WITHOUT MEN Widows and spinsters in Britain and France in the eighteenth century 8 NOBLE WIDOWS BETWEEN FORTUNE AND FAMILY 9 THE ULTIMATE JOURNEY Sati and widowhood in India 10 WIDOWS IN ISLAM 11 WIDOWS HIDDEN FROM VIEW The disappearance of mourning dress among Dutch widows in the twentieth century 12 WIDOWS IN WESTERN HISTORY A select bibliography