I'm trying to find a word which encapsulates within it the meaning of the term 'widow' and the term 'female divorcee' implicitly.
So for example, rather than having to explicitly state:
The individual could be a widow or a female divorcee.
You could just say:
The individual is a __________.
and that word would imply both the aforementioned words.
Is there such a word?
There is no such word in English. There simply isn't. Any word encompassing both widow and divorcee is going to make both of them unhappy, and the word divorcee will make many divorcees unhappy (particularly those who dumped their husbands or who think of themselves primarily as, say, molecular biologists).
Neither of them will necessarily think it suitable to be called "single" or "unmarried" or "unremarried" (which I have never heard used), and a widow may recoil at being so described, however technically accurate it might be.
Nowhere is it written that there is a single English word for every condition that someone thinks there should be a single English word for. That is why we have phrases, sentences, paragraphs and entire books.
"Widow" and "Divorcee" have slightly different meanings - one where the husband is dead, and one where the marriage was dissolved.
I am unaware of a single word that covers both cases. You could use the term "Previously married", as in "She was previously married"
It's hard to express both statuses in a single word or phrase and still sound idiomatic. That said, I would suggest:
You might go with unremarried
Which implies a previous marriage, thus eliminating the “never-been-married” and also implying that the previous husband is now out of the picture for an unspecified reason- could be death; could be divorce.
I don't think there's such a word. There's simply very few contexts where you would need to consider both widows and divorcees as a single category, because other than being previously married they have very little in common. Maybe in previous eras such a term might have been useful, since unmarried women were considered incomplete, and both would be eager to find a new husband. But in modern, western society this isn't the case.
Also, in those earlier times I suspect divorce was much less common -- it's only in the last few decades that it has lost its stigma. So in earlier times most members of the category would be widows, and divorcees were considered tarnished, so people wouldn't treat them similarly. So again, there would be little need for a common term that encompasses both.
If you need to refer to both situations, you'd simply use a descriptive phrase like "formerly married".
The closest to a single-word answer I can get is husbandless, although to exclude those women who have never married, you have to add now to imply that she once did have a husband:
The individual is now husbandless.
Unfortunately, it would also exclude women who were previously married to, and either survived the death of, or divorced from, another woman. The word spouseless (again with now) would encompass all those, but if used in the original sentence would not preclude men in a similar position. However, switching from The individual to She would allow:
She is now spouseless.
which I think covers all possibilities.
References:
(Ignoring the single-word requirement)
You could use an intentionally ambiguous phrase like "Her husband isn't around any more" or "Their father is no longer with us" both of which could be interpreted either way.
If you can tolerate an adjective rather than a noun, you could say remarriageable, which while it may not occur in dictionaries, has obvious meaning to readers due to the strong parallel to the common word marriageable.
