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 heavy grieving is over. America is an individualistic and voluntaristic society in which social engagement, after the early years of usually ascribed social involvement, requires the self-confidence and ability to utilize resources that do not come knocking on the door.

Support Systems

A support is any object or action that the giver and/or the receiver define as necessary or helpful in maintaining a style of life (Lopata, 1979). A support system is a set of similar supports, and a support network consists of all those persons and groups who provide these supports. Extensive discussions with other social scientists in Poland, Yugoslavia, Egypt, Iran, and the United States during the initial stages of planning the support systems studies developed a set of four support systems that are generally defined as necessary or helpful to widows. Naturally, national variations had to be delineated since some supports seemingly "natural" in Chicago were meaningless in other cultures. For example, several of the emotional supports suffered in translation and substitutions had to be identified.

Economic Support System

The first and basic support system is economic. Although widows are often able to obtain economic support through their own paid work, this is usually not the one and only resource. People can barter, exchange objects such as money or food, or perform services that result in economic supports. Thus, we asked if the widow receives or gives money in the form of gifts, payment, or partial payment for food, clothing, health, vacation-related expenses, or other bills. We then established the resources from which she obtains such supports or for whom she acts as a resource. We also asked about other sources of income.

Economic supports can come from intergenerational transfers of property, such as inheritance, from earnings, or from benefits obtained from past earnings, people responsible for such supports, or societal programs. Traditionally, family units supported all members throughout the life course, although there is anthropological evidence that some groups of people deserted or in other ways disposed of members who became economically unproductive (Fry 1984). In many of the societies discussed in this volume, it is the son who is responsible for the economic support of elderly parents and widows.

In cases in which people were unable to support themselves economically and who also lacked families and whose communities were so large that no one felt responsible for their support, organized aid came from churches, as in the past in England and the United States (Lopata and Brehm, 1986). Other groups, such as voluntary associations, sometimes took on this task but were soon supplanted by governmental programs.

Widows can have jobs, pensions, or other benefits of having worked for pay in the past. They can also receive benefits from the work of their late husbands, directly from the employer, or from monies invested in insurance policies. Some societies provide economic support in the form of social security, to which the employer and employee contributed over time and which can include dependents. However, these benefits are often restricted to certain categories of workers, such as government employees, cause of death of the husband, such as the Israeli war widows, or to characteristics of the widow. Lopata and Brehm (1986) examined in detail the American social security system and found many problems, such as the absence of supports if a widow did not have entitled children yet was not old enough to receive old-age benefits. Finally, some societies, realizing that family, church, or community resources for the economic supports of people such as widows are no longer available, have instituted welfare programs. Some communities or larger social units, such as the state of California (see volume 2), have multiple programs aimed at preventing poverty among its members.

The widow may contribute to the economic supports of others through work, the provision of goods she buys, or the giving of monies. A widow with small children must be able to support them. If she is unable to do so, a larger group, such as the deceased husband's family, the community, or the state may take them away from her. In strong patriarchal families, the economic support of the children may be guaranteed by the male line, but each member is expected to contribute work and behavioral cooperation in return. A widow may work hard to maintain her children, expecting that they will provide her in turn with economic support when she is no longer able to maintain herself.

Service Support System

The type of services regarded as necessary or helpful in maintaining a desired life-style varies considerably according to the culture and social structure of the society and community. If a woman is not expected to leave her territory under any conditions except marriage, she will have no need for help with transportation. In trying to contain the number of service supports about which we asked, we started with a list applicable to the widows in metropolitan Chicago, modifying it for other locations when necessary. Thus, the supports upon which we focused included the inflow and outflow of help with transportation, house repairs, housekeeping, shopping, yard work, child care, car care, care during illness, decisions, and legal aid. Several of these are a direct outgrowth of life-styles in urban, highly developed American cities. Americans are very dependent upon the automobile, and it has, until recent decades, been the province of men. Married women were usually driven places by their husbands, and service of the car was organized and performed by men. Many of the Chicago-area women sold or gave away the family car when the husband died. This means that they either restricted their movement considerably, used public transportation, or were dependent upon others. This explains the inclusion of transportation and help with shopping in the service support system. The division of labor in the home usually involves household repairs being performed by men. Thus, the absence of a husband can lead to a need for services involving car and house care. In fact, both the Chicago and the Columbus, Ohio, widows specified help in these areas from male relatives or neighbors (see volume 2). Help with yard work, or in other locations, such as where farming is important, again was specified because of the traditional division of labor as well as its magnitude. Legal aid is associated with highly developed or rapidly developing societies, but it is not usually used by widows in a formal way. They often depend on their informal network, which may be asignorant of the law and governmental policy as is the older, little-educated widow herself. Interestingly enough, communist China provides such services to many of its members.

Universal is the need for help with child care, care during illness, and with decisions. Housekeeping services depend upon the composition of the household and its complexity. Here the major differences in the needs and services received by widows are between those who live alone and those who live with other members of the household who must be served, who provide the major portion of the work, or with whom there is an exchange of services. Young children require a lot of care, older ones can provide it to the mother. We have found that if the work is part of the normal flow of life, it is not labeled by the widow as help. Help is identified as coming from outside the home or as organized by special arrangement. Thus, some women state that the children "help" with housekeeping; others state they receive no help, even as the interviewer sees a daughter preparing a meal. The widow may be expected to care for her grandchildren in return for economic supports. In fact, many of the Chicago-area widows prefer to live alone—and are able to do so with the help of social security—rather than moving to the homes of their grown children simply because they do not want to take care of the children and help with housework. They did all that at another stage of life and now do not wish to provide such services except in emergencies. Widows in other societies frequently must exchange their services for economic and other support by family members since they are not able to maintain themselves independently. In these situations, the widow may wish to do so because of cultural definitions of worth and the impossibility of imagining herself not involved in such networks and not working until she can no longer do so physically.

Service supports can be supplied to widows informally through an exchange system with people other than members of the household. Relatives, especially grown children, can supply assistance if they are available and willing to do so. Such is the case of Filipino widows with available daughters. Neighbors are an obvious source of service supports, although some neighborhoods are organized without such activities (Lopata, 1971). The amount of service support received by a particular widow may depend on her contributions to an exchange network, if not currently, then at least in the past. Voluntary organizations can provide services, such as bringing in food during funeral and official mourning periods. Some urban centers offer transportation to their elderly living in public housing or connected with special groups.

Some communities and even state governments in America have developed complex and multiple services to selected members. A perfect example is the state of California (see chapter 10, volume 2). Services include transportation, housekeeping, shopping—all the services included in our interview. The combination of formal and informal service supports can meet the needs of many people. However, some subcultures maintain negative judgments toward people who accept formal supports, not only economic but also in the form of services; thus, many people are simply not reached although they would accept supports. A gap can exist between the way people are socialized, and thus define what is acceptable, and the way the formal, bureaucratic system is organized to provide services.