History Main / FalseWidow

[[folder:Film -- Animated]]
* When he's looking to adopt the girls in ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe1'' Gru claims to be a widower dentist. Leads to some hilarity when he quickly comes up with the name "Debbie" for his alleged wife and later asks "Who?" when the head of the orphanage references her later in the conversation before quickly correcting himself.

-->'''Maple:''' ''(tearfully)'' This year, I lost my dear husband Edgar.\\
'''Edgar:''' ''(offscreen)'' Quit telling everyone I'm dead!\\
'''Maple:''' ''(sobbing)'' Sometimes, I can still hear his voice!

* In ''{{Literature/Twilight}}'', Esme claimed to be a war widow when she settled in a new town after escaping from her abusive husband, since she was pregnant at the time.

* A sequence in ''Film/EnolaHolmes'' has the title character getting information by disguising herself as a widow, and she explains to the audience that people will automatically feel uneasy around widows, and thus be more likely to help her to get rid of her. She's only sixteen but lies that she's twenty-two, to make having been married a little more plausible.

* In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'' the Borogravian Government offers to quietly fake widowhood for Shufti as a reward for her efforts during the war. She declines the offer, preferring to stand on her own.

* Inverted in ''Film/{{Bounce}]'': Creator/GwynethPaltrow's character is a widow but claims to be divorced because she was sick of people pitying her. Since, in her words, "everyone is divorced these days", they don't pity her as much when she tells that lie.

* When he's looking to adopt the girls in ''WesternAnimation/DespicableMe'' Gru claims to be a widower dentist. Leads to some hilarity when he quickly comes up with the name "Debbie" for his alleged wife and later asks "Who?" when the head of the orphanage references her later in the conversation before quickly correcting himself.

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* Inverted in ''Bounce'': Creator/GwynethPaltrow's character is a widow but claims to be divorced because she was sick of people pitying her. Since, in her words, "everyone is divorced these days", they don't pity her as much when she tells that lie.
* A sequence in ''Film/EnolaHolmes'' has the title character getting information by disguising herself as a widow, and she explains to the audience that people will automatically feel uneasy around widows, and thus be more likely to help her to get rid of her. She's only sixteen but lies that she's twenty-two, to make having been married a little more plausible.
* Inverted in the movie ''Film/MrBelvedereGoesToCollege''. A young woman (Creator/ShirleyTemple!) who really is a widow still hides the fact that she has a son because she's afraid everyone would think her story was bogus and she'd be expelled from college.
* Daniel Plainview in ''Film/ThereWillBeBlood'' is a male version, to explain where his "son" came from and present himself as a respectable family man to prospective clients. [[spoiler:The truth is that he adopted the son of a deceased employee.]]

* This trope is found in the 1968 Film ''Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell'', which was the inspiration for the plot of the ''Theatre/MammaMia'' musical. Carla, who is unsure which of three [=GIs=] is the father of her baby, instead uses the name "Mrs. Campbell" (taken from the soup tins), and pretends to be the widow of the fictitious Eddie Campbell to avoid the stigma of having a baby out of wedlock.

* Fawn at the beginning of ''Literature/TheSharingKnife'' by Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold claims to be a "grass widow" to explain why she is pregnant and alone. Dag delicately inquires if she knows what a grass widow is. Fawn had thought it meant a woman recently widowed; it really meant a woman in her exact situation, never married but claiming to be widowed in order to escape the stigma of unwed pregnancy.
-->It seemed she'd told the truth despite herself.
* One of the earliest examples is Helen Graham from Anne Bronte's ''Literature/TheTenantOfWildfellHall''. She's escaping a horrible marriage.
* Maxi in the novel ''Literature/IllTakeManhattan'' by Judith Krantz decides that it's much cooler to be a widow than a teenage divorcee, and fakes being a widow (runs around in black, sighing tragically, what have you) instead. In her defense, she was 19 and way dumb for it.

* Pharinet in ''Literature/ChroniclesOfMagravandias'' claims widowhood even though there's no solid proof her husband is dead. It serves the practical purpose of letting her move out of her husband's house and back with her own family, which she always wanted.
* In ''Literature/RepeatItTodayWithTears'' by Anne Peile, Susie's mother did this after having two children in the space of a few years with a man she never married. Susie explains that her mother regretted they were born in the 1950s, thus she couldn't use the excuse of her husband dying in World War II.

* In ''{{Literature/Twilight}}'', Esme claimed to be a war widow when she settled in a new town after escaping from her abusive husband, since she was pregnant at the time.
* In ''Literature/MonstrousRegiment'' the Borogravian Government offers to quietly fake widowhood for Shufti as a reward for her efforts during the war. She declines the offer, preferring to stand on her own.

* ''Literature/TheMerchantPrincesSeries'': In ''The Hidden Family'', Miriam's forged papers in New Britain establish her as a widow returning from the Empire, because [[NoWomansLand women in New Britain are usually the property of a father or husband]]. As an adult widow, she is considered a competent adult and able to contract on her own behalf.
* In ''LIterature/ThePointOfMurder'' by Margaret Yorke, Kate poses as a widow under a false name to protect the privacy of her married boyfriend during weekends away together.

* A male version in an episode of ''Series/CSIMiami'' had the Villains of the week being a group of con artists posing [[spoiler: as a widower and his two children (actually a 30 something married couple) murdering a man in order to use his wife as a means to get into a yacht club and steal gold from another of its members]].

* In ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'', after Sam gets involved with Amelia Richardson, he finds out her husband did not really die in the war, but in this case Amelia really believed her husband was dead.

* ''Series/CallTheMidwife'': Phyllis is crushed to learn that a "widower" who's courting her actually has a living wife. He explains that he looks after his wife, but her dementia has progressed to the point that she doesn't recognize or even acknowledge him anymore. Although Phyllis eventually forgives him the deception, she decides that they're BetterAsFriends.
* A very strange case occurs in ''Series/TheAndyGriffithShow'', wherein a man leaves his wife to escape their {{awful wedded life}}, at which point she claims to the entirety of Mayberry that he was run over by a car while out of town and [[DeathFakedForYou holds a funeral for him]]. This makes it awkward when the live man returns a few years later.

* Mrs. Arbuthnot of Creator/OscarWilde's play ''A Woman of No Importance''.

* {{Inverted}} in ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill:'' when Bobby sees his grandfather holding a photo of a Japanese woman, he claims that it's the wife of someone he killed in World War II and that he got the picture from RobbingTheDead. It turns out she's actually [[FlorenceNightingaleEffect a nurse]] with whom he had an affair before being forced to return to the States. (And yeah, she ''did'' have his child, though Cotton doesn't realize that yet.)
* A gender-flipped example in ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'', where King Chicken laments about the tragic loss of his wife and how he's had to raise a child by himself while also plotting against Duckman in an attempt to placate Bernice, with whom he's been having an affair. Unfortunately for him, his still-living wife speaks up right in the middle of his (made up) sob story.

Can be depicted as a [[WidowWoman Wicked Widow or a Wonderful Widow]], depending on the circumstances.

* ''Literature/TheMerchantPrincesSeries'': In ''The Hidden Family]]'', Miriam's forged papers in New Britain establish her as a widow returning from the Empire, because [[NoWomansLand women in New Britain are usually the property of a father or husband]]. As an adult widow, she is considered a competent adult and able to contract on her own behalf.

* On ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' Mrs. Garrison claims that Mr. Garrison is dead when trying to date UsefulNotes/RichardDawkins. In actuality, [[UseuflNotes/{{Transgender}} she]] ''is'' Mr. Garrison.

* On ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' Mrs. Garrison claims that Mr. Garrison is dead when trying to date UsefulNotes/RichardDawkins. In actuality, [[{{Transgender}} she]] ''is'' Mr. Garrison.

* Another male example: In ''Theater/TheRainmaker'', File falsely claims to be a widower.

* Referred to in ''Series/DrQuinnMedicineWoman'' when Marjorie (one of her sisters) snaps that she wishes she WAS a widow, "At least then I'd get some respect! Instead, everyone sniggers that I wasn't woman enough to hold onto him!", referring to the cheating husband who abandoned her.

* In ''[[Literature/TheMerchantPrincesSeries The Hidden Family]]'', Miriam's forged papers in New Britain establish her as a widow returning from the Empire, because [[NoWomansLand women in New Britain are usually the property of a father or husband]]. As an adult widow, she is considered a competent adult and able to contract on her own behalf.
* In ''The Point of Murder'' by Margaret Yorke, Kate poses as a widow under a false name to protect the privacy of her married boyfriend during weekends away together.

* In ''Repeat It Today With Tears'' by Anne Peile, Susie's mother did this after having two children in the space of a few years with a man she never married. Susie explains that her mother regretted they were born in the 1950s thus she couldn't use the excuse of her husband dying in World War II.

* Maxi in the novel ''I'll Take Manhattan'' decides that it's much cooler to be a widow than a teenage divorcee, and fakes being a widow (runs around in black, sighing tragically, what have you) instead. In her defense, she was 19 and way dumb for it.

* Inverted in the movie ''Mr. Belvedere Goes to College''. A young woman (Creator/ShirleyTemple!) who really is a widow still hides the fact that she has a son because she's afraid everyone would think her story was bogus and she'd be expelled from college.

* PlayedForDrama in ''Podcast/AliceIsntDead'', as, at a loss to explain her wife Alice's sudden disappearance, and unable to conceive that she might've been left, the {{Narrator}} initially assumes (admittedly [[TheoryTunnelvision without evidence]]) that Alice is dead. She's so unshakeable in this belief that she attends grief support groups, right up until she sees her wife on TV.

* In ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'' the Borogravian Government offers to quietly fake widowhood for Shufti as a reward for her efforts during the war. She declines the offer, preferring to stand on her own.

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* In a bizarre twist on this trope, Victor Mancha of the ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' comic books thinks that his dad was a marine who died in the first Gulf War. It turns out that [[spoiler: he never had a dad in the traditional sense at all--Victor is a cyborg created by the evil robot Ultron using his mother's DNA.]]

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* ''Repeat It Today With Tears'' by Anne Peile mentions that Susie's mother, having been abandoned by the father of her children, pretended to have been widowed during World War II (although by the events of the story, society has moved on enough that her having a live-in boyfriend isn't commented on.)

* In ''Discworld/MonstrousRegiment'' the Borogravian Government offers to quietly fake widow-hood for Shufti as a reward for her efforts during the war. She declines the offer preferring to stand on her own.

* {{Inverted}} in ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill:'' when Bobby sees his grandfather holding a photo of a Japanese woman, he claims that it's the wife of someone he killed in World War II and that he got the picture from RobbingTheDead. It turns out she's actually [[FlorenceNightingaleEffect a nurse]] whom he had an affair with before being forced to return to the States. (And yeah, she ''did'' have his child, though Cotton doesn't realize that yet.)
* A gender-flipped example in ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'', where King Chicken laments about the tragic loss of his wife and how he's had to raise a child by himself while also plotting against Duckman in an attempt to placate Bernice, with whom he's been having an affair with. Unfortunately for him, his still-living wife speaks up right in the middle of his (made up) sob story.

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