--- Marie Stewart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Widows would usually wear mourning until a second > marriage, or for the > rest of their lives. One way that a widow could > signal a willingness > to marry was to put off the black. Although it was > socially expected > that even a young woman would wear mourning for a > husband for at least > two years, one year of deepest mourning and at least > one year of > secondary. (and here I might be slipping into > Victorian custom, so > I'll stop.) > Yes, I think you are. That doesn't sound Elizabethan to me. What I was just reading recently indicates that a month (a period called a "month's mind") was considered entirely appropriate for mourning a spouse. Men and women both were expected to remarry, especially if there were children involved. This is from David Cressy's Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England, Oxford University Press, 1997. MaggiRos The Elizabethan World is at http://elizabethan.org coming soon in paperback! _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
