\"The cult of germination has always been
associated with the cult of the dead. ...
In most popular representations,
death is a woman ....\"

    -- Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (1949)

[See also Karl S. Guthke, The Gender of Death:
A Cultural History in Art and Literature (1999),
for examples of female representations of death
in mythology and folklore of various cultures.]


(Death is a Woman was also the US title of a
1966 British film, not related to our story.)