Here is the law for the husband: “Every Dwidja knowing the law, who sees his wife die before him, if she has obeyed these precepts, and is of the same class as himself, must burn her with consecrated fires and with utensils of sacrifice.”—“After having accomplished thus with consecrated fires the funeral ceremony of a wife who has died, let him contract a new marriage, and light a second time the nuptial fire.”[838] As for the widow, her duty is very different: “A virtuous woman, who desires to obtain the same abode of felicity as her husband, must do nothing which may displease him, either during life or after death.”—“Let her willingly emaciate her body by feeding on flowers, roots, and pure fruits; but, after losing her husband, let her not pronounce the name of any other man.”—“But the widow, who, through the desire of having children, is unfaithful to her husband, incurs contempt here below, and will be excluded from the celestial abode whither her husband has gone.”—“Nowhere in this Code is the right of taking a second husband assigned to a virtuous wife.”[839]
The obligation not to marry again, and especially that of living on flowers and fruits, are sufficiently vexatious, but they are nothing to the suttees, or burning alive of widows, which were quite recently common in Bengal. The Code of Manu does not speak of this abominable custom, though it was very ancient, for Diodorus mentions it, and relates how the two widows of Ceteus, an Indian general under Eumenes, disputed the honour of burning themselves with the corpse of their husband. The description which Diodorus gives corresponds in every detail with what took place at the suttees quite recently; so slow to change are these old theocratic societies. One of the wives, says Diodorus, could not be burnt because she was with child. The other advanced to the funeral pile crowned with myrtle, adorned as for a wedding, and preceded by her relatives, who sang hymns in her praise. Then after having distributed her jewels to her friends and domestics, she lay down on the funeral pile by the side of her husband’s body, and died without uttering a cry.[840]
At that time, according to Diodorus, the law only allowed the sacrifice of one wife. In the eighteenth century it was more exacting. In fact, the writers of the Lettres édifiantes have described in detail several sacrifices of this kind. The custom was no longer observed except by wives of grandees, and especially of rajahs; but all of these were burnt, save the women with child, whose suffering was only deferred.
In 1710, at the death of the Prince of Marava, aged eighty years, all his wives, to the number of forty-seven, were burnt with his corpse, which was richly adorned and placed in a large grave filled with wood. The victims, who were covered with precious stones, stepped at first very bravely on the funeral pile; but the moment the flames reached them, they uttered loud cries, and rushed on each other. The spectators succeeded in calming them by throwing a number of pieces of wood at them; afterwards their bones were gathered up and thrown into the sea, and a temple to their honour was erected over the grave.[841] At that date, and in that part of the country, even women with child were only temporarily spared till after their delivery.[842] Two other princes, vassals of Marava, having died at the same epoch, and leaving, the one seventeen, the other thirteen widows, all these unfortunate creatures were burnt together, except one, who, being with child, could not sacrifice herself until later. The suttees were not a legal obligation; relatives even tried to dissuade the widows from it; but the point of honour, and the fear of public opinion, or rather of public contempt, were stronger with them than love of life.[843] The mode of burning varied in different provinces. In Bengal the woman was bound firmly to the corpse, and the two bodies were covered with bamboos. In Orissa, the widow threw herself on the pile, which was in a pit or grave. In the Deccan, a country which was in great part Tamil, and where suttees were much more rare, the widow sat on the pile, and placed the head of her dead husband on her knees. She remained thus, motionless, until she was suffocated by the smoke, or overthrown by the fall of heavy logs of wood, previously attached with cords to posts placed at the four corners of the pile. It is said that in certain provinces the victim was intoxicated with opium beforehand. Sometimes also, proper precautions not having been taken, it happened that she rushed madly out of the flames, and was then brutally thrust back by the spectators.[844]
These frightful customs, which have hardly yet disappeared from India, are but survivals from the times of savagery: such brutalities were habitual in a number of primitive societies, as I have previously shown.
In the Koran, in the Bible, and among the Arabs, or rather the contemporaneous Islamites, we find nothing analogous to this; but the position given to the widow is none the less unenviable.
A verse of the Koran shows us that before the time of Mahomet, sons inherited all their father’s wives as a matter of course, in African fashion: “Thou shalt not marry the women who have been thy father’s wives; it is an abomination and a bad practice.”[845] We have seen that this most gross custom, against which Mahomet inveighs, still prevails in various countries, and especially amongst the negroes of tropical Africa. It must have been general at the time of Mahomet, even amongst the Arabs, since the prophet states that his law need not have any retrospective effect: “Let that remain,” proceeds the same verse, “which has already been done.”
There is one point, however, on which the Koran is in advance of the greater number of barbarous societies, and even of the Bible. It recognises, in fact, the right of a widow to inherit from her husband; this right gives her a fourth, if there is no child, and an eighth only in the contrary case.[846] But notwithstanding this the widow was often abandoned, or, what is worse, confounded with the heritage. The Bible was less kind to the widow. It specifies indeed that the fortune of the husband is security for the personal effects and the dowry of the wife, but it does not place her among her husband’s heirs. The Jewish widow was a charge on her children, or, if she had none, on her own family.[847] The abandoned widow had no other resource than her share in the offerings and public charity.[848] The injunction is indeed given not to afflict her;[849] it would certainly have been better to grant her some rights.
In Judæa, the wife was bought by her husband; it is therefore probable that, in primitive times, she formed a part of his wealth, as is the case now among the Mussulman Afghans and among the Kabyles.
In Afghanistan, the widow, being a mortgaged property, cannot re-marry until the price of purchase paid for her by her deceased husband has been reimbursed to the parents of that husband.[850] In a great number of Kabyle tribes, the widow remains “hung” to her dead husband—that is to say, she is counted part of the heritage.[851] Generally she returns to her family, and her father or her relatives sell her a second time.[852] If, however, she has children, especially male children, she cannot be forced to marry again; but then the son redeems her, or she deducts from the property of her children the sum necessary to redeem herself from paternal power.[853] In the tribe of Aït Flik, heirs have, by pre-emption, the privilege of marrying the widow, and that without having to pay the thâmanth.[854] It is understood that while awaiting the day when she is to be disposed of again, the Kabyle widow is bound to the strictest chastity. If she becomes with child, she is punished by stoning.[855]