During the medieval period, women had specific roles generally classified as daughter, mother, sister, wife - she who bears all the burdens struggles but still doesn't receive the same recognition as a man. They are only recognized by the identity of their male counterpart – the man's wife, the man's daughter and the man's mother, etc. So what happens when they no longer have a male counterpart to lean on? What happens when they are no longer their father's daughter but another man's wife? And what happens when this man dies and the woman has to face society as a widow? So what is his role in society and what is his title? What do we expect from the widow? In some medieval societies, when a woman's husband died, she had no rights to property and domestic life, and to survive in society she had to start over and form a relationship with another man. In some societies, women were not allowed to remarry, while in others, for the woman's family and well-being, she was allowed to remarry. In medieval England, women played many roles in different fields. In many cases, women had a say in their own lives, while in others, they lived in the man's shadow. Widows had many expectations and ideals that they had to live up to, they had to live a virtuous life as seen in the Bible, take care of the land that their deceased male counterpart left behind with the help of an administration consisting of Married men and women, however, if they were poverty-stricken, they were still expected to participate in society through self-reliance and struggle. The expectations of a woman in medieval England were to remain chaste, to retain their virtue until they married, to give birth.... ... middle of paper ...... I can have no other relationship with another man unless she remarries. Bibliography Cavallo, Sandra and Lyndan Warner. Widowhood in medieval and modern Europe. Harlow, Essex, UK: Longman, 1999. Clark, Katherine. "Purgatory, punishment and discourse of holy widowhood in the High Middle Ages and at the end of the Middle Ages." Journal of the History of Sexuality 16, no. 2 (2007): 169-203. French, Katherine L. "Loving Friends: Surviving Widowhood in Late Medieval Westminster." Blackwell Publishing 22 (2010): 21-37. Rice, Nicole R. "'Temples Within Christ': Forms of Chastity in a Barking Abbey Manuscript." » Journal of the History of Sexuality 19, no. 1 (January 2010): 115-132Walker, Sue Sheridan. “Feudal Constraint and Free Consent in the Making of Marriages in Medieval England: Widows in the King's Gift.” » Historical Documents 14, no. 1 (1979): 97-109.