I agree that the true definition of widow is a woman whose husband has died, but also agree that women often have used that term when divorced or separated, as it was difficult socially to be a single woman until relatively recently. (Not that it is easy now, but it is more common.) My grandmother was divorced through no fault of her own- her husband ran around town drinking and with a 'floozy' (that he actually married and lived with- in that order- for 60+ years) in a small Iowa town c. 1930. The women were worried if she even glanced at their husbands, and she would not speak to the men in order to not 'stir up a fuss.' She was shunned by her former women friends too. When a new, divorced man moved into town, they were 'fixed up' and she felt forced to marry him. He was awful to my dad (child of her first marriage) and did not treat her well, but she felt she had no other choice than to stay with him. She needed him economically as well as socially- she was able to have friends again once she married this other man. She loved her errant first husband for the rest of her life, and put up with the second for that long too. I have numerous family members who are listed on the census as "widow" when they were actually divorced or separated from their husbands. In one family, there are 2 censuses where she lists "widow", which are the years when they were separated and legally divorced; she then remarried him and was listed as "wife" again. Interestingly, I found him on the earlier census in another state, living with his mother and listed as "single." Once again, the divorce was because of bad behavior on his part (with money), but the woman always bore the greater stigma, even if she had been a perfect wife. Pamela