Back when women were minors under their father or their husband's custody, what happened to widows or spinsters with no known male relative?

by SharpshootinTearaway

Poor and middle-class women probably ended up in the streets, or in workhouses (or any other refuge, hospice or institution their country had, I guess?), but could upper-class women, with enough assets to live the rest of their lives comfortably without a man in their house, simply stay without any male custodian?

Were there things that their status of minors didn't allow them to do (other than voting), and was the lack of a custodian a disadvantage in their daily life?

mimicofmodes

I'm assuming by your mention of workhouses that you're thinking about the 17th-19th centuries in the anglosphere, or "the west" more generally? In this context, women were not considered minors. I have a number of past answers relating to this, but I think these two are the most relevant:

Jane Austen and the Brontes are among the most treasured voices in the English language despite having published anonymously at a time when married women weren't permitted to enter into contracts. Were there any role models for women writers of their generation? Did their prominence affect these laws?

Women’s Property Rights in the Early 1700s?