At younger ages, a widow had more chances of remarrying (1 out of 5), but still less than widowers (1 out of 2).
As we have seen, never-married women rarely held land before marriage, although it was more common for remarrying widows to do so.
She had good reasons for remarrying but also good alternatives.
Thus, it should be kept in mind that, upon any marital dissolution, one had a risk of remarrying, migrating out or dying.
First, the proportion of widows remarrying declined during the early modern period.
For those who were still young when their spouse died, there was the alternative of remarrying.
On the one hand, they were generally discouraged from remarrying.
As expected, the remarriage risk of widows was more sensitive to age, in the sense that the risk of remarrying fell significantly as age increased.
