Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1886-11-11
THE HINDU WIDOW.
THE HORRIBLE lNDlGNIUES THAT
ARE HEAPED UPON HER.

Food and Clothing and subjected TO
Lifelong Degradation.
In the northwest provinces of India widows
suffer treatment far worse than that to which
their sisters in Bengal are subjected. The
heartless customs are strictly enforced among
all the castes, but as you ascend to the more
well-to-do and richer classes they assume a
more relentless and virulent form A widow
among the respectable classes in this land Of
rigid Hinduism is considered and treated as
something worse than the meanest criminal
in the world. Directly after the death of her
husband she is Stunned by her relations and
friends, and. as if her breath or touch would
spread among them the contagion Of her
crime-the natural death Of her husband
they do not even approach near her. but send
the BARRIERS wives, who play an important
part in all Hindu ceremonies, to divest her of
all her ornaments and fineries. These mer-
cenary persons often proceed to their task in
q most heartrending manner; but that is the
command of their mistreSseS, and they must
obey it. No sooner has the husband breathed
his last than these hirelings rush at their vic
tim and snatch off her ear rings and nose
rings.
At the funeral the relatives of the deceased,
male and female, accompany the corpse, and
all, rich or poor, must 90 on foot The men
lead the procession, the women, with thick
wells drawn over their faces, following, and
last comes the widow, preceded by the bar
bers' wives, who take great care to keep her
at respectable distance from the main body
of the mourners, shouting out as they go
along to warn the other people of the ap-
proach of the detested widow. Thus she is
draggedalonG wild with grief, aghast at the
indignities heaped upon her. her eyes full Of
bitter tears, mortally afraid to utter single
syllable lest she should receive a more heart
less treatment from the very people who, but
q few days ago, held her so dearly. Soon
after the party reaches the river or tank,
near which the cremation takes place, the
widow is pushed into the water, and there she
has to remain in her wet clothes, away from
all the other people, until the dead body has
been burned to ashes-a process occupying in
India several hours-and the whole company
have performed their necessary ablutions.
And when all of them have started for home
the widow is led along by the BARRIERS wives,
her clothes soaking wet and she mutely bear
ing the rudeneSs of her barbarous guides.
The custom is rigidly observed in all seasons
and all circumstances. 1t matters not
whether she has been laid up with fever or
suffering from consumption, whether she is
scorched by the burning rays of the midday
sun of Indian summer or frozen by the
piercing winds blowing from the Himalayas
in winter, the widow must be dragged with
the funeral party in the preceding manner.
There is no pity for her.
THE BUTT OF VILE ABUSE.
When she returns home she must sit or lie
in a corner on the bare ground in the same
clothes. wet or dry, which she wore at the
time of her husbands death. There she has
to pass her days of mourning unattended by
anybody, except perhaps by one of the bar
bers' wives, who, if not well paid, does not
care to give her kind offices to a widow She
must be content with only one very scanty
and plain meal day, and must often COM
pletely abstain from all food and drink. Her
nearest and dearest relations and friends shun
her presence as if she were an accursed viper,
and if ever they approach near her it is onlv
to add fresh indignities to her miserable lot.
They make her the butt of the vilest abuses
and the most stinging aspersions.
The thirteenth day after the funeral the
widow is allowed. after necessary ablutions,
to change the clothes that she has worn since
her husbands death. Her relatives then
make her presents Of few rupees, which are
intended as a provision for life for her, but
which are often taken possession of and spent
in quite different way by some male rela-
tive. The Brahmans, who have been contin-
ually demanding money from her ever since
she Npecame a widow, come again at this
stage, and make fresh requests for money for
services which they have not rendered Her
head, which was covered with black, glossy
hair only the other day, is completely shaved,
and the Brahmans and the BARRIERS wives
have to be paid their gratuities for this cruel
ceremony. But even then the wretched wo-
man has no respite.
Six weeks after her husbands death the
widow has again to wear those clothes-the
very sight of which sends q shudder through
her inmost soul-which she had put Oh for
the first thirteen days. She can change them
only on one condition, that she must go on a
pilgrimage to the holy river Ganges (which is
often impossible on account of distance) and
perform ablutions in its purifying waters.
After that she has to wear the plainest cotton
dress and live on the simplest single meal a
day, only varied with frequent fasts.
HER LIFELONG MOURNING.
The year Of mourning, or rather the first
year of her lifelong mourning thus slowly
passes away. If she happens to live with her
own parents, and if they be tenderly disposed
towards her, her miseries are little lightened
by their solicitude for her health and COM
fort. She is sometimes allowed to wear her
ornaments again.
The widow who has no parents has to pass
her whole life under the roof of her father-in-
law, and then she knows no comfort what
ever. She has to meet from her late hus-
bands relations only unkind looks and unjust
reproaches. She has to work like slave
and for the reward of all her drudgery she
only receives hatred and abhorreuce from
her niotherin-law and sisters-in-law. If
there is any disorder in the domestic arrange
ments of the family the widow is blamed and
cursed for it. Among Hindus women can
not inherit any paternal property, and if a
widow is left any property by her husband
she cannot call it her own, All her wealth
belongs to her son, if she has any, and if she
has nobody to inherit it she is made to adopt
an heir and give him all her property directly
he comes of age, and herself live on bare
allowance granted by him Even death can
not save widow from indignities For when
wife dies she is burnt in the clothes she had
on, but a widows corpse is covered with
coarse white cloth, and there is little cere-
mony at her funeral
Only the Hindu widows know their own
sufferings; it is perfectly impossible for any
other mortal, or even the angels" TO realize
them. To Hindu widow death Is thousand
times more welcome than her miserable ex-
istence. 1t is no doubt this feeling that drove,
in former times, many women to immediate
themselves on the funeral pyres of their dead
husbands. Thanks to the generosity OF the
British government, this inhuman practice of
sati, OF the self-immolation of widows, has
now been completely abolished in India
There is only one thing to be said OH this
point, and that is that the British government
Topped off the outward and more fragrant
part of the perniciors system, but did 10.
strike at the hidden root of it-Devendran
Das in Nineteenth Century.
why Some Occupations Are Despised.
'I wonder why we despise certain occupa-
tions? We don't despise man who hammers
stone and saws boards; why should we despise
barber2 Is the care of the human head in
Iacc hOnora bla than tho Shan{Do of