What are the reasons that women feel sad?

Many of the poems in Exeter Book deal with the pain of exile. In "The Wife's Lament," the Wife is not only desconsolate because of her separation from her husband, but also because of her exile from her homeland. She is friendless in a foreign land without protection from her kin. Loneliness is also a salient component of many of the Anglo-Saxon poems, thus giving them an immediacy and resonance with modern readers as well. In "The Wife's Lament," the female protagonist mourns for her husband. He has (possibly) betrayed her, and now she is alone, imprisoned under an oak tree, still dreaming of their once-happy life. She is even jealous of other lovers who are together. Her pain is palpable, despite her husband's possible infidelity. In "Deor", the narrator is lonely since he has been replaced in his lord's court.