Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T23:40:08.353Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘I was there when she passed’: older widowers' narratives of the death of their wife

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2012

DEBORAH K. VAN DEN HOONAARD ,
KATE MARY BENNETT  and
ELIZABETH EVANS
DEBORAH K. VAN DEN HOONAARD*
Affiliation:
Gerontology Department, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, Canada.
KATE MARY BENNETT
Affiliation:
Department of Mental and Behavioural Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK.
ELIZABETH EVANS
Affiliation:
Department of Mental and Behavioural Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK.
*
Address for correspondence: Deborah van den Hoonaard, Gerontology Department, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, NB E3B 5G3, Canada. E-mail: dkvdh@stu.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There is evidence that older widowed women provide narrative accounts of the events that led up to the deaths of their husbands. These accounts are qualitatively different from other parts of their interviews. This study examines interviews from older widowers and asks what features characterise their narrative accounts of their wife's death. The data show that men do speak of the death of their wife in a qualitatively different way than they do of other matters: women speak emotionally whilst men speak of their behaviour. Using Kirsi, Hervonen and Jylhä's typology of male care-givers, we find that their interviews are characterised by four types of speech: factual, agentic, familistic and destiny speech. In addition, we find two additional speech types related to blame – one related to medical negligence (a subset of destiny speech) and one to self-blame (a subset of familistic speech). We argue that the use of these patterns of speech allow men to preserve their masculine identities at a time when bereavement puts them under intense strain.

Keywords

later lifewidowhoodnarrativewidowers
Type
Articles
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 34 , Issue 6 , July 2014 , pp. 974 - 991
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addis, M. E. and Mahalik, J. R. 2003. Men, masculinity, and the context of help seeking. American Psychologist, 58, 1, 5–14.Google Scholar
Arber, S., Davidson, K. and Ginn, J. (eds) 2003. Gender and Ageing: Changing Roles and Relationships. Open University Press, Maidenhead, UK.Google Scholar
Bakan, D. 1966. The Duality of Human Existance. Rand-McNally, Chicago.Google Scholar
Becker, G. 1997. Disrupted Lives: How People Create Meaning in a Chaotic World. University of California Press, Berkeley, California.Google Scholar
Becker, H. S. 1996. The epistemology of qualitative research. In Jessor, R., Colby, A. and Scheweder, R. (eds), Essays on Ethnography and Human Development. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 53–71.Google Scholar
Bennett, K. M. 2007. ‘No sissy stuff’: towards a theory of masculinity and emotional expression in older widowed men. Journal of Aging Studies, 21, 4, 347–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, K. M. 2010. How to achieve resilience as an older widower: turning points or gradual change? Ageing & Society, 30, 3, 369–82.Google Scholar
Bennett, K. M., Hughes, G. M. and Smith, P. T. 2005 a. The effects of strategy and gender on coping with widowhood in later life. Omega, 51, 1, 33–52.Google Scholar
Bennett, K. M., Hughes, G. M. and Smith, P. T. 2005 b. Coping, depressive feelings and gender differences in late life widowhood. Aging and Mental Health, 9, 4, 348–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bennett, K. M. and Vidal-Hall, S. 2000. Narratives of death: a qualitative study of widowhood in women in later life. Ageing & Society, 20, 4, 413–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, H. K., Schwartz, A. J., Caruso, C. J. and Hannum, S. M. 2008. How personal control mediates suffering: elderly husbands' narratives of caregiving. Journal of Men's Studies, 16, 2, 177–92.Google Scholar
Brannon, R. 1976. The male sex role – and what it's done for us lately. In Brannon, R. and Davids, D. (eds), The Forty-nine Percent Majority. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1–40.Google Scholar
Calasanti, T. and Bowen, M. E. 2006. Spousal caregiving and crossing gender boundaries: maintaining gender identities. Journal of Aging Studies, 20, 3, 253–63.Google Scholar
Calasanti, T. and King, N. 2007. Taking ‘women's work’ ‘like a man’: husbands' experiences of care work. The Gerontologist, 47, 4, 516–27.Google Scholar
Chambers, P. 2005. Older Widows and the Lifecourse: Multiple Narratives of Hidden Lives. Ashgate, Aldershot, UK.Google Scholar
Charmaz, K. 1995. Grounded theory. In Smith, J. A., Harré, R. and Van Langenhove, L. (eds), Rethinking Methods in Psychology. Sage, London, 27–49.Google Scholar
Coles, T. and Vassaroti, T. 2012. Ageing and identity dilemmas for men. Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging, 24, 1/2, 30–41.Google Scholar
Davidson, K., Arber, S. and Ginn, J. 2000. Gendered meanings of care work with later life marital relationships. Canadian Journal on Aging, 19, 4, 536–53.Google Scholar
Davidson, K., Daly, T. and Arber, S. 2003 a. Exploring the social worlds of older men. In Arber, S., Davidson, K. and Ginn, J. (eds), Gender and Ageing: Changing Roles and Relationships. Open University Press, Maidenhead, UK, 168–85.Google Scholar
Davidson, K., Daly, T. and Arber, S. 2003 b. Older men, social integration, and organisational activities. Social Policy and Society, 2, 2, 81–9.Google Scholar
Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Polity Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Glaser, B. G. and Strauss, A. L. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Jakobson, R. 1971. Roman Jakobson: Selected Writings. Volume 2, Mouton, The Hague.Google Scholar
Jefferson, G. 1972. Side sequences. In Sudnow, D. (ed.), Studies in Social Interaction. Free Press, New York, 294–339.Google Scholar
Kirsi, T., Hervonen, A. and Jylhä, M. 2000. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do: husbands as caregivers to their demented wives: a discourse analytic approach. Journal of Aging Studies, 14, 2, 153–69.Google Scholar
Kirsi, T., Hervonen, A. and Jylhä, M. 2004. Always one step behind: husbands' narratives about taking care of their demented wives. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 8, 2, 159–81.Google Scholar
Lopata, H. Z. 1996. Current Widowhood: Myths and Realities. Sage, London.Google Scholar
McLeod, J. 1997. Narrative and Psychotherapy. Sage, London.Google Scholar
Meadows, R. and Davidson, K. 2006. Maintaining manliness in later life. In Calasanti, T. M. and Slevin, K. F. (eds), Age Matters: Realigning Feminist Thinking. Routledge, New York, 295–312.Google Scholar
Moore, A. J. and Stratton, D. C. 2002. Resilient Widowers: Older Men Adjusting to a New Life. Prometheus Books, New York.Google Scholar
Rubin, H. J. and Rubin, I. S. 1995. Qualitative Interviewing; The Art of Hearing Data. Sage, Thousand Oaks, California.Google Scholar
Russell, R. 2007. Men doing ‘women's work:’ elderly men caregivers and the gendered construction of care work. The Journal of Men's Studies, 15, 1, 1–18.Google Scholar
Schwalbe, M. L. and Wolkimir, M. 2001. Interviewing men. In Gubrium, J. F. and Holstein, J. A. (eds), Handbook of Interview Research: Context and Method. Sage, Thousand Oaks, California, 203–19.Google Scholar
Snow, D. A. and Anderson, L. 1987. Identity work among the homeless: the verbal construction and avowal of personal identities. American Journal of Sociology, 92, 6, 1336–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spector-Mercel, G. 2006. Never-ending stories: Western hegemonic masculinity scripts. Journal of Gender Studies, 15, 1, 67–82.Google Scholar
Stratton, D. C. and Moore, A. J. 2003. Resilience in Jewish widowers. Social Work Forum, 36, 5–23.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. H. Jr 2005. What's unique about men's caregiving? In Kramer, B. J. and Thompson, E. H. (eds), Men as Caregivers. Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 20–47.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. H. Jr 2006. Images of older men's masculinity: still a man? Sex Roles, 55, 9/10, 633–48.Google Scholar
van den Hoonaard, D. K. 1997. Identity foreclosure: women's experiences of widowhood as expressed in autobiographical accounts. Ageing & Society, 17, 5, 533–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van den Hoonaard, D. K. 1999. No regrets: widows' stories about the last days of their husbands' lives. Journal of Aging Studies, 13, 1, 59–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van den Hoonaard, D. K. 2009. Widowers' strategies of self-representation in an interview situation: a sociological analysis. Ageing & Society, 29, 2, 257–76.Google Scholar
van den Hoonaard, D. K. 2010. By Himself: The Older Man's Experience of Widowhood. University of Toronto Press, Toronto.Google Scholar
White, A. K. 2006. Men's health in the 21st century. International Journal of Men's Health, 5, 1, 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar