Wife-Burning in India

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 22, 1907

Wife-Burning in India

It has been generally believed that the suttee, or wife-burning, has been totally abolished in India. But it seems to be practised still. Mr. Abbott, in his volume entitled “With the Prince in India,” recently published, says that not long ago thirteen men were charged with assisting at a ceremony in Behar. It was stated in the magistrate’s commitment that when in October, 1904, a certain Brahman died, his body was taken to the banks of the stream to be burned, and the widow, after having bathed in the river and adorned herself, took her seat on the pyre, and called on her son to do his duty as a devout Hindu. He lighted some wheat stalks and put them to her mouth, and then with four other Brahmans he lighted the pyre. A large crowd assembled, and the widow turned toward the setting sun, and as the flames reached her, overcome by the smoke and heat, she fell back into the fire, and was burned to ashes with the corpse of her husband, amid beating of drums and clashing of cymbals. Similar cases, Mr. Abbott declares, now and again appear without comment in the native journals. That they are rare is due to the teachings of the Christian missionaries and the influence and laws of a Christian government.—Selected.