The Hindu Widow.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 181, 4 December 1886, Page 7

The Hindu Widow.

It is certain that the prohibition of the marriage of Hindu widows has from a very ancient time been prevalent in India. The groat Hindu lawgiver Manu, who flourished about five conturies S.C., enjoins the following duty on widows :— " Let her emaciate her body by living voluntarily on pure flowers, roots, and fruits, but let her not, when her lord is deceased, oven pronounce the name of another man, Lot her continue till death forgiving all injuries, performing harth dutie?, avoiding every sensual pleasure, and cheerfully practising the incomparable rales pi virtue which have been followed by such women as were devoted to only on© husband, A virtuous wife ascends to heavon if, after the decease of her loid, she devotee hers-lf to^pious austerity; but a widow -who flights her decea«ed husband by marrying again brings disgiace on herself here below, and shall he oxcludod from the teatof her lor 1." Whether the Veaaa (the Hindu Scriptures) and the Vedic commentaries expressly lay down, that a widow after the death of her husband mu&t not marry again, has boen disputed by many a modern Pandit; but it is clear from the above quotation that the cruel custom has reigned supreme in India since tho time of Manu, whoso injunctions have been literally obeyed by all Hindus. And as time parsed on tho merciless law of Manu ba3 not only been rigorously carried out, but its effects havo been immensely apgravated by many additional and not le^s cruel customs iinposod upon the widows by the priestly claS3 in India, which is, par exelhnce, the land ot customs aud ceremonies. Tho evils of widowhood in India are manifold, and tho avstom of early marriage j makes thorn tenfold intense. Among the Hindup, a boy who is hardly out of his teens is married to a girl v,no lud Daiuy passed twelve summers ; and it of len happens that a wife loses her husband soon after her marriage, and ihou f-ho i* initiated into tho horrorsTof a widow'? life cro she has passed her \ery girlhood Even if the would-be-husband, after the formal engaeomont has been made, die& bafoie tho ceremony of marriage, the girl ia condemned to widowhood for All her life, A Hindu woman's period of tomporal happinoes ceases in respective of hor rank or wealth directly she becomes a widow. When a young; man dies, hla parents and friends are in dead mourning for him, expressing tho greatest grief for hi? untimely k>s* ; butfew people understand or caro to comprehend the utter wietchorincss in v/hich he leaves his young w ife, wfto 1- yet too tender and inexperienced to bear even the commonest hardships of this world.^ No foonor has the husband bieathed his last than the young wife i=* mide to give up all tokens of the married state, and ro forego all pleasurob and luxuries as utterly unsuitable for her present condition. The iron bangle round hor wiist and the red powdor on the parting of her hair, which she so ptoudly wore biit a tow days ago, sho must now give up for ever. The ornaments which'were never off hor person during her husband's lifetime, ?be horselt removes one by one from their limb=< and puts them away, unless somebody else, without takiug any heed of'hor grief-stricken heart, snatches them off "her body, .Fine or extractive clothes she must not -wear, she lias to be contented with a plain, simple, white saii. The very appaaranco which her bereaved and helpless condition presents would make you stand aghast. It is hardly possible even to recognise her now, who only a few days ago was radiant with her youth tul bloom, and~glittoring with her picturesque costume and brilliant ornaments. The most outrageous customs aro imposed on her, and ehe must observe them or lose her caste, which, among tho Hindus, virtually amounts to lor-iny !e< lifn. 4.la* ! the cußtom of man i 5?i 5 ? moro cruel than the decree of Providence. The formal period of mourning for a widow in Bengal la^ts for one month with the Kayasths, the most numerous and influential eh*- in that part of India —the tJrahmans keeping only ten days. During this timo she ha* to prepare her own food, confining herself to a single meal a day, which consists ot boiled coarse rice, simplest vegetables, ghi or clarified butter, ai.d milk ; she can on no account touch meat, fiah, eggs, or any delicacy at all. She i« forbidden to do her hair and to put any scent or oil on her body. She mutt put on the same cotton sari day and night,' oven when it is wet, and must eschew the pleasure of a bed and lie down on baro ground, or perhaps on a coarse blanket spread on it ; in some cases sho cannot evon havo her hair dried in the sun after her daily morning ablution, which sho must go through boforo she can put a particlo of food in her mouth. The old women cay that the soul of a mar. after his death ascends to heaven quickly and pleasantly in proportion to the bodily inflictions which his wife can undergo in the month after the death of her husband. Consequently, the new made widow, if not tor any other reason, at least for the benefit of the soul of her departed husband, must submit to continuous abstinenca and excruciating self -inflictions. The real misory of tho widow, however, begins after the first month. It is not enough that she is quite heart-broken for her deceased husband, and that she undergoes all the above-monticned bodily privations, she must also continually bear the most galling- indignities', and the most humilating aelf-sacritices. Sho cannot take an active part in any religious or social ceremony. If there bo a wedding in the house, the widow must not touch or in any way interfere with the articles that aro ueod to keep the curious marriage. During thr poojahs, or religiouß festivals, she is but grudgingly allowed to approach near the object of veneration, and in gome bigoted families the contact of a widow is supposed to pollnto the materials requisite for the perforrciance of marriage ceremonies. The widow L?, in fact, looked upon as tho "evil one" of the house. If she has no eon or daughtov to comfort her, or if she has to pass her whole life, as is often the case, with her husband's family, her condition truly becomes a helpless one. During any ceremony or grand occasion she has silently to look on, others around her enjoying and disporting themselves, and if some kind relation does not come to relieve hor tedium, she has hardly anything else to do but to ruminate on her present ss a d, wretched condition. Everv female member of the family, whether m vrried or unmarried, can go to parties, but a widow cannot ; and if sho expresses any wish to join the family on such occasions, it is instantly repressed by the cart rebuke of her mother-in-law, or some other relation, that *' Bhe is a widow, and must not have such wishes." The most severely-felt injunction of custom upon" the widows is that of fasting for two days every month during the whole period of her vt idowhood ; that is, till the last month of her life.- This observance is called elcadasi, which ia a Sanskrit word meaning "the eleventh," so called from the fact thar the widow abstains from all food on the eleventh day of each of the two fortnights into which the Hindu lunar month is divided. In many houses you will see an aged invalid widow, lying down prostrate on her fasting day, haggard and emaciated, her daughters sitting around her. It is the middle of Indian

summer, everything is blazing with torpid heat. The poor widow can hardly get up through age and illness, and there on so scorching a day she goes through her fast without touching a particle of food or a drop of water. The daughters are trying their best to soothe the widow, in an insensible state. All at once her eyes open, ehe looks hard at one of hor daughters and most beseechingly asks for a little water. They look at her helplessly and tell her— "Dear mother, to-day is ekadasi, water ie forbidden." The wretched widowis in a state of delirium ; she has lost her memory. Again and again she implores her daughters for a drop of water, saying, "■ I am dying, pray give me water." They cannot bear this eight any more, they buret into tear 3 — but they dare not grant their mother's prayer ; they only try to comfort her by saying that diroctly the nighfc passes away > sho shall have water. But alas ! the night may not paes away for the widow { perhap3 she succumbs to her mortal thirst in a few hours, and thug dies a victim to the custom of man. To a Hindu widow death is a thousand times more welcome than her miserable existence. It is no doubt this leeling that drove, in former times, many widows to immolate themselves on the funeral pyres of their dead husbands. Thanks to the generosity of the British Government, this inhuman practice of sail, or the self-immolation of widows, has now been completely abolished in India. There is only one thing bo be paid on this point, and that is that the British Government lopped off the outward and more flagrant part of the pernicious system, but did not strike at the hidden root of it. The English have done many good things, they can do more. They need not, by passing laws or issuing public proclamations, directly interfere with the domestic customs of tho Hindus ; but they can make their influence bear indirectly unon the enlightened head* among the natives of India, and, by the steady infusion of the spirit of European culture and refinement, bring about the elevation of Hindu women, and further the progress of tho country at large. The English, by the peculiar position they enjoy in India, possess a distinct vantage ground, from which they can exert great influence on everything appertaining to the Hindus. Besides, the natives thomselves are, under tho benign influence of English education, awakoning to the horrors of their vicious system. They have already begun the forward movement; all that they want is a sympathetic and effective impulse from outside to push them on in their course of improvement. — Devendra M. Das, in the "Nineteenth Century."