Merry widows? How attitudes to bereaved women have changed

There’s a downside to “till death us do part” – it does. For example, 60s model Jan de Souza, co-host of Tramp nightclub with her husband Johnny Gold, died recently: of loneliness, her obituary said. He’d died a year earlier, after 50 years of marriage. It recalls the perfect little poem by Henry Wotton, Upon the Death of Sir Albert Morton’s Wife:

He first deceased; she for a little tried

To live without him, liked it not, and died.

Is it romantic? Or is it shocking that a widow might die of loneliness? It has been known for decades by science (and for aeons by art) that loneliness is bad for our health: as damaging as 15 cigarettes a day, or alcoholism. Lonely people are 50% more likely to die prematurely than those with good relationships. Stress affects you more with no one to help you; financial and health problems are yours alone, and everyday obstacles take a bigger emotional toll. It reduces your immunity, and increases inflammation, which can contribute to heart disease. And there’s nobody to nag you to go to the doctor.

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