Widowhood: World Perspectives on Support Systems

HELENA ZNANIECKA LOPATA

Changes in world societies during the past century or so have dramatically modified the support systems and life-styles of people in various circumstances at all stages of the life course. These changes have not been experienced evenly the world over; they are influenced by the extent and direction of social development of each society as well as by the extent and direction of social development of the community in which a person lives. Personal resources also help shape change. This chapter, as well as the others in both volumes of Widows, examines the resources and support systems of widows living in different social structures. The basic theme of support systems was first developed in my study of widowhood in metropolitan Chicago (Lopata, 1979). This theme has been used by the other authors in their research and/or in organizing their data.

Resources for Support Systems

Each human builds a support network of people organized in many different ways out of the resources available, with more or less personal initiative. Some segments of the network are inevitably involving, as when relationships with the husband's kin follow marriage. In other social situations the initiative is entirely the person's own, as in the creation of an entrepreneurial venture. The larger and more complexthe society and that part of it in which the person is located, the greater are the resources available if the person knows of them and has freedom of choice. Thus, there are three major sets of factors affecting the networks that supply different supports: society at large, the community and the person's own resources. Let us examine all three.

The Society

Globally, societies vary considerably in their cultures and social structure. Cultures provide the basic ways of thinking, doing, and having for people who have been socialized into them. For example, culture provides the rituals of mourning and the prescribed ways of behaving as a widow. Of course, most societies have more than one culture, or subcultures, as evidenced by India, with its regional, class and caste, rural and urban, as well as religious variations. The life of a widow thus varies considerably by her position in the system. An upper-caste Hindu widow leads a very different life from that of a poor tribal widow.

The social structure of a society refers to the way in which people are organized, in their whole life or in segments of life such as occupation. Small, relatively homogeneous societies of the past and in some isolated areas of the present are usually organized into families. The composition of families varies considerably, depending on what is considered the basic unit. Some families are organized along male, or, much less frequently, female lines of descent. They can also be traced bilaterally, with various implications for the interrelationships. The basic family unit can be nuclear, with the husband-wife and children unit drawing primary loyalty and providing the greatest amount of support to its members. In addition to family and kin units, people obtain informal supports from those with whom they interact frequently—in the neighborhood, clubs and organizations, the work place, and in religious or recreational activities.

Although each society is highly dependent upon the informal support network of its members, the larger and more complex the society is the more it needs to evolve more formalized, bureaucratized social structures to meet its everyday, occasional, or emergency needs (Weber, 1958; 1956/1964). These organizations, many of which grow into enormous systems, supply the productive supports, formalize religious observances, insure recreational events, educate the young and the not so young in specialized aspects of the culture, make laws and insure that they are followed or punish the offenders; provide channels of communication, attempt to solve personal and group problems, and relate the society to other societies of the world.

The Community

Although the society may have a complex system that interweaves informal and formal support systems for all members, or for special categories of members, these are not necessarily available in all communities. In general, the smaller the community and the more isolated it is from the larger society, the more dependent its members are upon the informal system. This is certainly true of the widows in Malo, Vanuatu (formerly called the New Hebrides) studied by Rubinstein. However, the presence of formal resources does not guarantee their use by any single member. This depends upon personal resources.

Personal Resources

Formal resources for support systems may be avoided even when available if a person considers herself fully provided for by informal support systems or if there is a cultural stigma associated with their use, as is true of the Asian poor in California (see chapter 10 volume 2). The basic variable found among Chicago-area widows that influences the complexity of their support network and the utilization of a variety of resources—when controlled for health and adequate finances—is education (Lopata, 1973; 1979). We find references to education in other chapters of this book and in the literature on women in general, but with special references to developing nations. The modernized or more-developed segment of the world is dependent upon an educated population that is able to function in a bureaucratic, mobile, and mass-communication influenced culture. Work organized according to jobs requires literacy and often a great deal of specialized, ideationally transmitted knowledge. So does every other aspect of life. People who have not learned to solve new problems in the abstract, do not know how to prepare for new roles, or enter into new relationships are very restricted in their social life space in this type of society. A major finding of an earlier study of metropolitan Chicago widows was that the more education the woman had, and the more middle-class lifestyle she and her husband built when he was alive, the more disorganized her life and self-concept became when he died (Lopata, 1973). This is so because of the tremendous interdependence between husband and wife (if they stay together) in this segment of society On the other hand, the more education the widow has, the more personal resources she has to draw upon in rebuilding her life and creating new support systems. Of course, middle-class life also offers more economic and health resources even in widowhood. However, it is the personality of the woman herself that influences the degree of initiative she shows in seeking new social roles and relations once the period of...