In various continents, cultures abound, each having spiritual and socio-economic implications. In many societies, these cultures have harmed the populace, leading to its ban.
Sati- the widow burning culture is one of those. Sati or suttee is an ancient Indian practice in which a widow gets herself burnt to ashes during her late husband’s funeral pyre. In various continents, cultures abound, each having spiritual and socio-economic implications. In many societies, these cultures have harmed the populace, leading to its ban. Sati- the widow burning culture is one of those.
Sati or suttee is an ancient Indian practice in which a widow gets herself burnt to ashes during her late husband’s funeral pyre. A well-known case is that of the 10th-century CE ship burial of the Rus’ described by Ibn Fadlan. When a female slave had said she would die, her body was subsequently burned with her master on the pyre.
Rituals such as widow sacrifice/widow burning have, presumably, prehistoric roots. Early 20th-century pioneering anthropologist James G. Frazer, for example, thought the legendary Greek story of Capaneus, whose wife Evadne threw herself on his funeral pyre, might be a relic of an earlier custom of live widow-burning. In Book 10 of Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica (lines 467ff.), Oenone is said to have thrown herself on the burning pyre of her erstwhile husband, Paris, or Alexander.
The strangling of widows after their husbands’ deaths are attested to from cultures as disparate as the Natchez people in present-day Louisiana, to several Pacific Islander cultures. While Sati spread to Russia, Fiji, and Vietnam, some historians claim that this practice might not have been indigenous to India but brought to them from some other cultures like Scythian invaders earlier in their history. If the man had several wives, only one of the wives, his preferred was granted the privilege of being immolated with him.
The others also envied the wife who performed this, and they treated her family with respect. They pressured widows who refused to die with their deceased into doing this, especially if she had no children. She could only be free from Sati if she was pregnant or menstruating. Things took a different turn in the 19th century after Raja Ram Mohan Roy began the fight to reform Hindu society. A feminist, he founded the Brahmo Samaj, a sect of Hinduism that believes in One God- monotheism.
Fully accepting western education, he became vocal against the Sati system, casteism, child marriage, and polygamy. Instead, he advocated for widows to remarry. His effort caught the attention of Lord William Bentinck, the then Governor-General of British India, who worked with him to place a ban on Sati practice via the famous Regulation XVII in 1829 that situated Sati as illegal and punishable by courts.
