Wife Burning

The most inhuman and cruel practice of burning alive the wife on the pyre of her dead husband is being called "Sati". This demonic Sati has been in practice since ages and periodically, here and there we still here such painful truth !! What could be the fault of the women for going to this extremely horrible situation of sitting on the pyre of their husbands. In a narrow minded society where women were never respected for either their beauty or for their talents, marriage, dowry, service to the in-laws and other chorus of house keeping etc were superseded suddenly on the death of their husbands. It was immaterial, if the women were young or elderly, barren or have children - small or grown ups, boys or girls, it becomes her unpardonable fault to being alive while her husband departed her once for all.

It was not only in India that this practice of willingly or unwillingly accompanying the dead body of husband prevailed. In many parts of the world, this customary practice of burying everything that was used by the person, along with the dead, was very much prevalent. All the household things, clothes, ornaments, food items, crockery were buried along with his grief-stricken wife.

As the time passed, people realized the need to reuse the household articles and recycle the ornaments but continued with burning and burying the unlucky wife, a punishment for her being alive when the husband was dead. She was considered bad luck and an ill omen for the entire family and stood dejected and rejected.

On the ground or on a pulpit, a bed is prepared of dried wooden logs along with other inflammable fuel such as grass dried cow-dung made in the shapes and sizes of pizza. The dead body is placed over the pyre compelling the unlucky wife to sit near the feet of the corpse or laying her beside. The pyre thus covers the duo of one dead and one alive. Setting ablaze the pyre, the wife burning is carried out before the eyes of hundreds of people, relatives and unrelated general citizens of the area. The cries of the burning wife rend the thick smoke but do not rend anyone's heart watching this heinous crime.

At this present time in India, a section of the same people are somewhat kind to let the widow live as long as she wishes but she has to live entirely secluded, eating plain food without any spices, wearing plain white piece of cloth, with shaven head, walk barefooted and live without any adornment. What a tasteless life ! She is considered a living bad omen to the entire family and society. Hence, she is not allowed to come out before anybody during auspicious occasions such as marriage and is not allowed to participate in any matrimonial function with her status as that of a widow.

That is why women who have seen such a social boycott and degradation, disenchantment and dullness of life, choose to sit on the pyre of their beloved husband, ablaze themselves to gain the name of "Sati Savitri" rather than undergo this torture throughout their lives.

Unless the authorities come out clearly to ban such social boycott against women and punish publicly those aiding and abetting such a shameful and uncivilized practice, I am afraid; many more women will become Satis. The concerned men of that society should learn to respect their own women, allowing them to lead a normal life, chose the life style, and stay in dignity.

Neither the society can take pride nor make progress in any humanitarian sciences, punishing for nothing their own women by setting them ablaze on the pyres of their dead husbands. On the contrary they must come out and help the widows by offering whatever possible help they could, even dignifying the widows by marring them.