WIDOWS IN INDIA | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 12, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 40.

WIDOWS IN INDIA.

The following account of a Hindu widow’s sad lot, told to a missionary, appeals to every Christian to aid in sending the Gospel which alone can brighten the lives of the widows of India:—

“I was married by my parents when a very young child. I was taught the routine of household duties, and the ceremonies of worship of our household gods. But what good did it do to worship them? What Fate has written in my forehead, must be. My husband died, leaving me one son and three daughters. Since the time of his death I have eaten but one meal a day, and that meal is of rice and vegetables only, and must be cooked by my own hand. Every fifteenth day is the widow’s fast day. My one meal is eaten on the morning of the fourteenth. On the fifteenth I must not take even a sup of water. Having not eaten since the morning before, I become so weak and faint that often before the morning of the sixteenth I become unconscious. If my son, who loves me, thinks I am dying, he may not refresh me with a drop of water to save my life. Should he give me such a drink of water, he has to endure one year’s penance to atone for sin. Again and again, especially in the hot months, my life has become almost extinct; and I wonder why death has not come and ended my suffering.”

“We are allowed no flesh of any kind, and you know how fond we Bengalis are of fish. Sometimes a large fish is brought into the house, more than the family can eat. And I just long for one taste of it! I see all the others enjoy it, and a good share goes to waste; but I dare not put a morsel into my mouth! This may seem a little thing to you, but such a longing comes over me for a taste of fish that I can hardly endure the sight.”

“But why are you bound by such unjust rules?” I ventured to say. “Ah! she answered, if I care to choose a life of shame, I might break them. And such treatment is the cause of so many of our widows going wrong.”

“But the greatest sorrow of all I have not told you. My youngest daughter, only sixteen, is now a widow in her father-in-law’s house, and has to spend all the days of her life in this round of fasting and suffering. She is the servant of the household, and can take part in no social feast nor marriage ceremony, nor in any other pleasure that comes now and then to brighten the dark life of other women. She is a childless widow. Her fate is worse than mine. How can I ever bear her sorrow and mine, too!”