Ithaca College

Vivian Bruce Conger, associate professor of history and coordinator of the women's studies program, presented a paper entitled, " 'Certainty Is the Mother of Repose': Widowhood, Gender, and Probate Law in Colonial Maryland," on October 10 at the 74th annual meeting of the Southern Historical Association, held in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The paper argued that while colonial lawmakers created probate laws by and for male heads of household to instruct widows about their proper gender roles, the law was ultimately a dialogue between magistrates and widows who sought to use its gendered language for their own ends.

Despite the legal bias against "motherly" agitation, widows frequently appropriated social and cultural norms embodied in the law to challenge sanctions against female liberty and power.