THE HINDU WIDOW.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1579, 4 March 1887, Page 3

THE HINDU WIDOW.

Life to the Hindu widow, if we are to accept as substantially correct a description of it givtn in one of the monthlies by a native of India, is surely "not worth having." Nay, so inten sly miserable seems to be her lot, that life, far from being worth having, must be often felt by the poor creature to be a curse rather than a blessing. We thought we had abolished Suttee — and so we have in a sense; but it would seem that when her husband dies a Hindu woman is consigned to a living death, the torments of which, while sometimes quite as acute as those of the stake, are much more protracted. In the light of what Mr Das tells us, it is easy to understand the equanimity, and sometimes apparent joy with which the Hindu women of logie fifty years ago were wid to

mount the funeral pyre which was to reduce their own body, along with their dead husband's, to aahes. "There is hardly a class of living beings, " says Mr Das, "whose wretched condition appeals more strongly to the humane feelings of charitably disposed persons, and in whose wofui state there is more scope for philanthropic effort, than the widows among the Hindus of India." " Very few people, " he adds, "have even the remotest idea of the miseries and horrors which they undergo." Mr Das is a Hindu himself, and should know something about it. For one thing, a Hindu widow is not allowed to marry again; this is a part of tn° r "'i -- ion of the people. The great ami axred lawgiver Manu forbade second marriage to women under pain of eternal damnation. Many of them, no doubt, would risk the future peoalty if the matter was left to their own choice, for they very often become widows when young, with life just opening before them. Child marriage iB the rule in India, and girls may find themselves in the condition of widowhood before they have well entered their teens. This of itself is a great evil, and must be felt as a great hardship by women in all the vivacity of youth, aad with the blood still coursing warmly through their veins; but they are inexorably condemned to it by the social as well as religious laws of the people. Some of them do rebel, and break their bonds—not by marrying again, that is out of their power—but by abandoning themselves to a less regular, a freer and probably on the whole a happier life. Condemnation'to perpetual celibacy might, however, be endured if the condition of the widow was otherwi?e tolerable. But " a Hindu woman's period of temporal happiness absolutely ceases directly she becomes a widow," let her be ever so young, ever so attractive, ever sj rich,ever bo c salted in rank. In the Presidency of Bengal, it appears the lot of the Hindu widow is not quite so deplorable as in the NorthWest Provinces of India, where the religious and social customs are most rigidly adhered to, but it is dismal enough. For a month after her husband's death, she lives in a state of semi-starvation, only being allowed the coarsest fare, which she must prepare with her own hands. She is treated like an unclean animal; must wear the same cotton" shirt" night and day ; must sleep on the bare ground, and refrain from all personal decorations. " The old women say that the soul of a man ascends to heaven quickly and pleasantly, in proportion to the bodily inflictions of his widow." The real misery of the widow, however, we are told, only begins after the first month; she has to basin then to " bear the most galling indignities and the most humiliating selfsacrifices." She is looked upon as the evil one of the house." Her t;uch is supposed in many cases to be pollution. She is not allowed to take part in any sociality or merrymaking. She must etand aside and " silently look on." But perhaps her most acute bodily sufferings result from the fasts she has to observe. AU through her widowhood she must remain absolutely without food on the eleventh day of every fortnight. This observance the family, as well as her own rei'ious convictions, constrain her to uudergo with extreme rigidity. For two whole days iu every month neither food nor drink of any kind uust pass her lips. The sufferings of old and feeble women under this imposition are described as being something dreadful.