College Widow: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''In my day a college widow stood for something... in fact, she stood for plenty!''|'''Groucho Marx''' in ''[[Horsefeathers]]''}}

A character type dating to at least the early 20th century (there is a ~~1915~~ ~~silent~~ ~~film~~ entitled ''The College Widow''), but now a [[Forgotten Trope]]: a single woman living in a college town who attracts, encourages and enjoys the attention of the young men from the local school. Often she is the younger wife of a deceased faculty member or college president, but in any case she is barely older than the students she courts. As a genuine widow, she came upon a healthy taste (and talent) for sexual relations ''legitimately'', but her youth left her with her wifely desires still burning hot; she thus turns to the school's handy supply of strapping young men to fill them. Her house, just off the campus, is usually the home to at least one [[Wild Teen Party]] a week if not more, and during Prohibition it's all but a speakeasy.

A character type dating to at least the early 20th century (there was a 1904 Broadway production entitled ''The College Widow''), but now a [[Forgotten Trope]]: a single woman living in a college town who attracts, encourages and enjoys the attention of the young men from the local school. Often she is the younger wife of a deceased faculty member or college president, but in any case she is barely older than the students she courts. As a genuine widow, she came upon a healthy taste (and talent) for sexual relations ''legitimately'', but her youth left her with her wifely desires still burning hot; she thus turns to the school's handy supply of strapping young men to fill them. Her house, just off the campus, is usually the home to at least one [[Wild Teen Party]] a week if not more, and during Prohibition it's all but a speakeasy.

In an era when most colleges and universities were male-only, she was usually the only outlet for a healthy young man's sexual urges short of the nearest brothel, and often far less expensive. Naturally, other local citizens viewed her as being a singlehanded danger to the moral rectitude of hundreds if not thousands of impressionable young men. Usually seen as a [[Femme Fatale]] if not [[The Vamp]], although she normally serves no master but her own libido.