The links between gender and marital status have been insufficiently explored or theorised within women’s history. This conference will bring new perspectives to a neglected area of research by examining the lives of single women during the last millennium in any period and any country. Speakers may focus on different categories of female singleness including spinsters, lone mothers, widows and divorcees and discuss single women’s involvement in areas such as health and welfare, politics, work, religion, culture, family, friendships, partnerships and networks.

Papers that offer new conceptual or theoretical approaches to singleness or compare the experience of single women and single men are also welcome. All papers must have some historical content.

The original inspiration for this conference came through discussions in April 2004 at Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis during the course of their project: ‘Gendered Passages in Historical Perspective: Single Women’. Ex-Fellows from the Rutgers project have now joined with the West of England and South Wales Women’s History network in the UK to host a conference which we hope will attract international interest and offer important new insights into this area of research.

Please send abstracts by 31 January 2006 to:
Kath Holden
email: Katherine.Holden@uwe.ac.uk