Constructions of widowhood and virginity in the Middle Ages

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"To be a virgin or a widow never promised a stable, uniform status to a woman during the Middle Ages. Rather, these positions were areas of contestation; constructions that did, and still do, create and interrogate notions of gender roles, areas of power, and areas of disability. Chastity, for one example, is an apparent given for both positions, but chastity at the time invoked any number of cultural meanings and practices. The essays in Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages address many facets of these two positions specific to women in medieval literature."--BOOK JACKET.