[xoxoxoBruce]

White Livered Widders
(from AppalachianHistory.net and Project MUSE)

In the Southern Appalachians, and particularly among the older generation, it might be heard of someone that they are white-livered. Though this phrase is now quite rare, it was once well-known and provides an interesting look at folk medicine in Appalachian history.

White-livered means having an abnormally high sex drive that incapacitates or kills a spouse by draining them of their vitality through incessant sex. One of the earliest mentions of this comes from a Vance Randolph study: “When a lively, buxom, good-looking woman loses several husbands by death, it is often said that her inordinate passion has ‘killed ‘em off,’ and she is referred to as a white-livered widder (or widow).” Usually the phrase was only a figure of speech, but it was sometimes believed that a “high nature” created white spots on the liver, and that if one were to marry three times, their liver would automatically turn white. Some believed that being white-livered correlated with having bad blood, which was a euphemism for syphilis, and transferred the fatal disease to the sexual deviants’ victims.

The phrase was mostly applied to women, leading some to believe that its popularity died off when people realized that women can have sexual appetites without being ill.