remittance woman

plural remittance women

1. historicalA woman paid a remittance to live abroad, especially because considered undesirable at home.

   ‘I see her, some years hence, a remittance woman, paid to live abroad, in such an hotel, in various Hotels du Lac, her beautiful face grown gaunt and scornful, her dog permanently under her arm.’

   1984, Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac, Penguin, published 2016, page 81

   1 more example

   Here, in the western solitude, lived for several years—the veriest remittance woman—the girl who should now, by the right of love and honor, be the Princess of Wales; and whose infant daughter should have been the heir to the throne.

   1908, Ella Rhoads Higginson, Alaska, The Great Country