It's moments like this that make me wish Orestes Fasting were here...

Someone on the IMDB board for the movie raised this question: Why doesn't Fantine avoid scandal by claiming to be a widow?

I know in the book she does, to the Thénardiers (though they find out the truth later), but why doesn't she do it later at the factory, too? The only answer that anyone gave on the IMDB board was that in her distress she probably "wasn't thinking straight." My best guess is that Mme. Victurnien, having talked to Thénardier, learned the truth from him, but that only applies to the Brick, not the musical.

Though now that I think about it, in the musical she never admits that Cosette is illegitimate, only that her father abandoned them. And the foreman probably would have fired her even if she were a widow, just because she wasn't a virgin yet wouldn't do it with him.

Have I just answered my own question? Or is there anything else that I'm not thinking of? Or is it just a plot hole that I'm trying to excuse?

My now-blurred recollection from the book is that she tried finding a job with Cosette around but was always turned down. So, she had to make the biggest mistake of her life, leaving her daughter to Thenardiers, and then applied for a job as if she had not got a child at all.

At that time having an illegitimate child would certainly be looked down much more than having an illegitimate one with a dead husband. I cannot recall that Fantine ever claimed she was a widow.

But Orestes Fasting can correct this, together with all other incorrect recollections/interpretations above.

Miss her too !

Well, those lovely women Fantine works with jump straight to, "She's always played a virgin, she's has a baby, must be illegitimate!" So their slander combined with the Foreman already wanting her and she's always turning him away, he finds out she has a kid so it's just him and he is angry, so I wager if she had tried to say she was a widow there would have been talk like, "then why'd you leave the kid" or "she's lying just to keep her job" because she worked with such incredibly pleasant people. This is how I see it.