The belief in another life is almost universal in the human race. As that life is supposed to resemble this, man having the same necessities there as here, part of his property is buried with him. And so strong is the idea of a wife being the exclusive property of her husband, that, among several peoples, she may not even survive him.
Thus, formerly, among the Comanches, when a man died, his favourite wife was killed at the same time.[693] In certain Californian tribes, widows were sacrificed on the pyre with their deceased husbands;[694] and Mackenzie was told that this practice sometimes occurred among the Crees.[695] In Darien and Panama, on the death of a chief, all his concubines were interred with him.[696] When one of the Incas died, says Acosta, the woman whom he had loved best, as well as his servants and officers, were put to death, “that they might serve him in the other life.”[697] The same custom prevailed in the region of the Congo, as also in some other African countries.[698] “It is no longer possible to doubt,” says Dr. Schrader, “that ancient Indo-Germanic custom ordained that the wife should die with her husband.”[699] In India, as is well known, widows were sacrificed, until quite recently, on the funeral pile of their husbands;[700] whilst, among the Tartars, according to Navarette, on a man’s death, one of his wives hanged herself “to bear him company in that journey.” Among the Chinese, something of the same kind seems to have been done occasionally in olden times.[701]
Turning to other quarters of the world: in Polynesia, and especially in Melanesia, widows were very commonly killed.[702] In Fiji, for instance, they were either buried alive or strangled, often at their own desire, because they believed that in this way alone could they reach the realms of bliss, and that she who met her death with the greatest devotedness, would become the favourite wife in the abode of spirits. On the other hand, a widow who did not permit herself to be killed was considered an adulteress.[703] In the New Hebrides, according to the missionary John Inglis, a wife is strangled, even when her husband is long absent from home.[704]
If the husband’s demands are less severe, his widow is not on that account always exempted from every duty towards him after his death. Among the Tacullies, she is compelled by the kinsfolk of the deceased to lie on the funeral pile where the body of her husband is placed, whilst the fire is lighting, until the heat becomes unbearable. Then, after the body is consumed, she is obliged to collect the ashes and deposit them in a small basket, which she must always carry about with her for two or three years, during which time she is not at liberty to marry again.[705] Among the Kutchin Indians, the widow, or widows, are bound to remain near the body for a year to protect it from animals, &c.; and only when it is quite decayed and merely the bones remain, are they permitted to remarry, “to dress their hair, and put on beads and other ornaments to attract admirers.”[706] Again, among the Minas on the Slave Coast, the widows are shut up for six months in the room where their husband is buried.[707] With the Kukis, according to Rennel, a widow was compelled to remain for a year beside the tomb of her deceased husband, her family bringing her food.[708] In the Mosquito tribe, “the widow was bound to supply the grave of her husband with provisions for a year, after which she took up the bones and carried them with her for another year, at last placing them upon the roof of her house, and then only was she allowed to marry again.”[709]
In Rotuma and the Marquesas Islands,[710] as well as among the Tartars and Iroquois,[711] a widow was never allowed to enter a second time into the married state. Among the ancient Peruvians, says Garcilasso de la Vega, very few widows who had no children ever married again, and even widows who had children continued to live single; “for this virtue was much commended in their laws and ordinances.”[712] Nor is it in China considered proper for a widow to contract a second marriage, and in genteel families such an event rarely, if ever, occurs. Indeed, a lady of rank, by contracting a second marriage, exposes herself to a penalty of eighty blows.[713] Again, the Arabs, according to Burckhardt, regard everything connected with the nuptials of a widow as ill-omened, and unworthy of the participation of generous and honourable men.[714]
Speaking of the Aryans, Dr. Schrader remarks that, when sentiments had become more humane, traces of the old state of things survived in the prohibitions issued against the second marriage of widows.[715] Even now, according to Dubois, the happiest lot that can befall a Hindu woman, particularly one of the Brahman caste, is to die in the married state. The bare mention of a second marriage for her would be considered the greatest of insults, and, if she married again, “she would be hunted out of society, and no decent person would venture at any time to have the slightest intercourse with her.”[716] Again, among the Bhills, when a widow marries, the newly-wedded pair, according to a long-established custom, are obliged to leave the house before daybreak and pass the next day in the fields, in a solitary place, some miles from the village, nor may they return till the dusk. The necessity of the couple passing the first day of their marriage in this way, like outcasts, is, writes Sir J. Malcolm, “to mark that sense of degradation which all the natives of Hindustan entertain against a woman marrying a second husband.”[717] The South Slavonians, says Krauss, regard a widow’s remarriage as an insult to her former consort;[718] and a similar view prevailed in ancient Greece, according to Pausanias,[719] and among the Romans.[720] The early Christians, also, strongly disapproved of second marriages by persons of either sex, although St. Paul had peremptorily urged that the younger widows should marry.[721] Indeed the practice of second nuptials was branded with the name of a legal adultery, and the persons who were guilty of so scandalous an offence against Christian purity were soon excluded from the honours and even from the alms of the Church.[722]
Much more commonly, however, the prohibition of a second marriage refers only to a certain period after the husband’s death. Thus, among the Chickasaws, widows were obliged to live a chaste single life for three years at the risk of the law of adultery being executed against the recusants;[723] whilst, among the Creeks, a widow was looked upon as an adulteress if she spoke or made free with any man within four summers after the death of her husband.[724] Among the Old Kukis, widowers and widows could not marry within three years, and then only with the permission of the family of the deceased.[725] Among the Kunáma, too, the period of widowhood must not be shorter than three years, in Saraë not less than two.[726] The Arawaks, British Columbians, and Mandans required that the head of the widow should be shaved, and she was not permitted to marry again before her shorn locks regained their wonted length.[727] Among the Hovas, Ainos, Patagonians, &c., the widow has to live a single life for a year at least after her husband’s death,[728] and among some other peoples for six months.[729]
It may perhaps be supposed that the object of these prohibitions is to remove all apprehensions as to pregnancy. But this cannot be the case when the time of mourning lasts for a year or more. In Saraë, where a widow is bound to celibacy for two years, a divorced wife is prevented from marrying within two months only, as Munzinger says, “in order to avoid all uncertainty as to pregnancy;”[730] and, among the Bedouins, a divorced woman has, for the same reason, to remain unmarried for no longer time than forty days.[731] Moreover, certain peoples, especially those among whom monogamy is the only recognized form of marriage, or among whom polygyny is practised as a rare exception, prohibit the speedy remarriage not only of widows but of widowers.[732]
The meaning of the interdict appears also from the common rule that a wife, after her husband’s death, shall give up all her ornaments, and have her head shaved, her hair cut short, or her face blackened. Among certain Indians, the law compels the widow through the long term of her mourning to refrain from all public company and diversions, under pain of being considered an adulteress, and, likewise to go with flowing hair without the privilege of oil to anoint it;[733] whilst, in Greenland tales, it is said of a truly disconsolate widow, “She mourns so, that she cannot be recognised for dirt.”[734]
Hence we see how deep-rooted is the idea that a woman belongs exclusively to one man. Savages believe that the soul of the deceased can return and become a tormentor of the living. Thus a husband, even after his death, may punish a wife who has proved unfaithful.