Widowhood in India by Mrs. G. A. Burgess

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 25, 1906

Widowhood in India

By Mrs. G. A. Burgess

MRS. G. A. BURGESS

“The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of cruelty.” Nowhere is the truthfulness of these words more manifest than in the condition and treatment of widows in India. The very word “widow,” which in Christian lands awakens the tenderest feelings of compassion in the hearts of men, in India is a synonym of sorrow, grief, shame, contempt, and degradation.

Widowhood is regarded as a punishment for sins committed by the woman in a former existence. Hence she is regarded as under the displeasure of the gods, and must spend the remainder of her life in hard and bitter penances, trying, if possible, to atone for her unknown sin. No sadder sight can be witnessed than to go into one of these Indian homes and see there, shrinking back from observation, a young woman with shaven head, her face wan and pinched with repeated fastings, her form clad in coarse garments, speaking volumes as to her attempts to make atonement for a widowhood for which she was never to blame.

When the husband dies, the beautiful, glossy hair of the wife must be shorn, as a sign of her disgrace; her bright-colored cloths are removed, and a coarse widow’s garment is put on; her ornaments are taken from her; she must eat but one meal a day, and twice each month she must fast. She must never appear with others on the occasion of a marriage festivity or family gathering, as her presence would be regarded as inauspicious, and must shrink guiltily back if she crosses the track of any one, for fear of bringing ill luck to him. She must never think of remarriage, but is often made the family drudge, and is an object of suspicion and solicitude, lest she bring disgrace upon the family.

There is nothing in such a life to uplift them; there is much to debase them. Their only hope of escape is death, or, what is worse, a life of sin—an alternative which hundreds of widows choose every year in order to escape the sorrows of their widowhood.

The number of widows in India is about twenty-three million, which is more than one fourth of the population of the entire United States. The custom of child marriage, which is so prevalent in India, is responsible for this vast number, many of whom are girls, and never knew what it meant to be a wife.

In God’s Word the most tender provision is made for the widow. His instructions are, “Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child;” and again, “Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me.” What comfort these words have been in times of bereavement to thousands of hearts in Christian lands; and in the light of these tender promises, this loving care, how awful the treatment of Hindu widows appears, and how strongly their sad condition should appeal to every Christian believer.

Calcutta.