My now Wife - Pre-1858 Wills, what does this mean?

[jonwarrn]

FamilySearch full text results for "my now wife", restricted to the UK, finding results of course for those counties with records open to view at home, virtually all in England
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https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/full-text/results?count=20&q.text=%22my%20now%20wife%22&c.recordPlace1=on&f.recordPlace0=9

In case a proportion of the wills might mention a previous wife, just a note that making the search +"my now wife" and +"late wife" or +"former wife" reduces the results drastically.

[Andrew Tarr]

Andrew, I am fairly certain that the testator is saying 'my now wife' I've put some snippets up for you to see. What do you think?

No doubt about it - the characters for 'e' and 'o' are very different !

[Jebber]

When it just says “My wife”  and the man has been married before,  the date of the will can indicate which wife. Often Wills were made on the death bed.

[jonwarrn]

From a quick look at a few of those wills I rather doubt that the testator had been married before
Obviously some of them had been, but perhaps the phrase is sometimes more to do with the wife, and what happens to her, than the man himself? She may of course marry again and then would be somebody else's wife! Provision for her may change in the event of remarriage.

[hanes teulu]

Not forgetting those ladies with summat to leave -

[Pinetree]

I was thinking along similar lines as jonwarrn, that her status would change after the testator died.  At the time of writing the Will the spouse would be wife but after the testator’s death she would be his widow.

Pinetree

[Zaphod99]

Terry Wogan always used to refer to "the current Mrs Wogan" .

Zaph

[karen58]

Terry Wogan always used to refer to "the current Mrs Wogan" .

Might point exactly, what do you believe. Cause I'm pretty sure he only had one wife, Lady Helen?

[hanes teulu]

Ralph Bigland, 1764