When a man loses his wife, he becomes a widower. The equivalent name for a woman whose husband dies is a widow. In many cases, a man is only referred to as a widower if he has not remarried. Both a widow and a widower are described as being widowed.

What is a surviving husband called?

widower You say that a man is a widower when his wife has died and he has not married again. Hes a widower in his late forties. When a woman has died, you can refer to her husband as her widower. Ten years later her widower remarried.

Do pensions go to surviving spouse?

The federal pension law, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), requires private pension plans to provide benefits to surviving spouses. If your spouse died before this date, the spouse may have chosen a benefit that would be paid only while he or she was alive, and there would be no survivor benefit.