WOMAN’S SORROW
Abbe Du Bois says: “The happiest death for a woman is that which
overtakes her while she is still in a wedded state. Such a death is
looked upon as a reward of goodness extending back for many generations;
on the other hand, the greatest misfortune that can befall a wife is to
survive her husband.”
Death is a tragedy in all lands, but with the Hindus it is made doubly
tragical because of superstition and the endless ritual connected with
their religion. The idea of mourning is not so much sorrow as it is
uncleanness, defilement.
When death seems imminent the family priest is summoned to administer
the last sacrament. The dying person is lifted from the couch and laid
upon the ground, which has been made ceremonially pure by smearing it
with cowdung and by placing the sacred dharba grass upon it. It is said
that if a man dies upon a bed he must carry it through eternity. It is
most important that a man should breathe his last upon the earth, and
not within the house, as there are certain phases of the moon when it
would be a serious annoyance for all within the house to have a death
beneath the roof. In fact, it pollutes the whole neighbourhood to have a
death in the vicinity, and the neighbours share in the unclean state of
the family until the corpse is carried to the burning-ground. Often if a
death occurs in a house in an unpropitious phase of the moon, the
dwelling must be vacated until such time as the priest shall permit it
to be purified; sometimes the ban cast upon the place lasts from three
to six months.
The duration of the state of ceremonial impurity varies according to the
age of the deceased. In the case of mere infants the time is about one
day. In the case of a boy who has not been invested with the sacred
cord, or a girl not married, the time is three days; and after that, in
either case, the time is ten days. In the case of a married girl,
whether or not she has gone to live with her husband, her own people
must observe the ceremonial for three days. During these periods the
near relatives of the dead are unclean and their touch would defile any
person or thing. They must not enter their own kitchen nor touch any
cooking utensil. The food must be cooked by some one not personally
connected with the dead, but of equal caste. If for some reason the
mourning family cannot get any one of their own caste to cook for them,
they must procure kitchen utensils and cook their food in some place
other than the usual kitchen, not using the utensils again. If a person
in mourning went into a kitchen or storehouse, everything would have to
be thrown away immediately.
The wailing of the women tells the story of a death, as they abandon
themselves completely to their sorrow, tearing their hair, striking
their foreheads, and uttering shrill cries to show their desolation. As
soon as the breath leaves the body preparations are made at once for its
disposal, as a corpse is never kept longer than twenty-four hours in
this hot climate. The eldest son, if there is one of suitable age, or
the father or eldest brother in order of nearest relationship, or the
husband if the deceased is a woman, must conduct the funeral ceremonies.
The body is washed and shaven and adorned with the marks of his caste,
and placed in a sitting position, with the head uncovered, and the son
or heir performs a sacrifice before it. Then the two thumbs and the
great toes are tied together and the body is enveloped in a new white
cloth and placed upon a bier, formed of two long poles with seven
cross-pieces. With the heir at the head, carrying a pot of fire, the
procession starts for the burning-ground. This bier must always be
carried by relatives or members of the same caste. When a man is ill and
it is necessary to tell him that he will soon depart from this world, it
is broken to him gently by some one saying, “You will soon ascend a
palanquin carried by bearers of your own caste.” On the way to the
cemetery the procession is stopped three times and the bier placed on
the ground, the face uncovered, and a prayer is said. If, as sometimes
occurs, the person is not really dead and he revives, it is most
unfortunate for all concerned, the revived man included, as he is
considered as dead and not allowed to return to his home or to his
caste.
Arrival at the burning-ground, where the funeral pile has been prepared
by men whose profession it is to attend to the dead, and who are always
of the pariah class, the untouchables, the body is put on the pyre and
the sacred thread and loin-cloth are removed with the winding-sheet, as
the body must depart from the world in the state in which it entered it,
completely naked. The head should be placed towards the south and the
legs towards the north. If near a sacred river, like the Ganges, the
body is laid for a few moments with the feet in the sacred water, and
water is sprinkled over it. The heir performs the sacrifices, and it is
he who sets the pile alight, while the priests repeat the prayers for
the dead. After the pyre is lighted the family retire to a distance and
leave the body to the administrations of the men in charge. In some
places the heir is supposed to break the skull so that the gases may
escape and the body may not explode. I was told of one woman who wished
to establish her right to a rich man’s property; consequently at the
critical moment she dashed from the arms of her friends and with one
blow of a stick broke the head of her late liege lord, thus clearly
showing her heirship, as only the legal heir is entitled to perform this
last kind office for the dear departed.
I heard one rather peculiar story while in India in regard to the
cremation of the dead. I sat at dinner beside an English official who
had been many years in the Government service of India. In the course of
the conversation I asked him what he thought about cremation. He said,
with a smile: “Well, I am perhaps a little prejudiced in regard to the
cremation of the dead. I had rather a peculiar experience.” I settled
back in my chair, hoping I was to hear one of the many stories of Indian
life which these old officials have to tell us if they find we are
interested in the lives of the people amongst whom they work. He said:
“I had an acquaintance once, a Scotchman, who died here in India, and
asked in his will that I and another friend would cremate him, and not
allow an Indian hand to touch him, but that we should personally attend
to all the details. We were young then in things Indian, and made our
first mistake in buying the wood for the pyre. Unfortunately for our
friend, the wily wood-merchant sold us green wood, and for the first day
he only smoked. By the second day the wood had dried out, and all would
have been well if we had known that the skull of a person burned should
be broken in order to allow the gases to escape. We did not know
this—our friend blew up. We spent the remainder of the second day in
gathering his remains and replacing them upon the fire. The third day
the work was fully accomplished; his ashes were collected and now repose
in a beautiful urn in his family chapel near Edinburgh.”
Ceremonies are held and sacrifices are made for ten days by the members
of a family in which there has been a death. If the deceased was a
married man, it is on the tenth day that the widow is degraded into her
state of widowhood. This rite is called “the cutting of the cord,”
because then the tali, the symbol of wifehood, is cut, and the woman has
no more place in Hindu society. The relatives and friends come to the
house and deck the poor woman in all her festive clothing; jewels are
put upon her, flowers, and sandal paste. Her friends mourn with her for
a time, then her bright clothing is removed, her beautiful black hair is
cut, and she must remain for ever close-shaven and clothed in a garment
of white. She may attend no feast, is permitted to eat only one meal a
day, and that should be prepared by her own hands, may not partake of
meat, and if she is so unfortunate as to be poor in this world’s goods
she becomes the drudge and servant of her husband’s family. She is
considered unclean, a thing of ill-omen, so unlucky that if a man were
starting on some business venture and on leaving his doorway should by
chance meet a widow he would return to his house and say a few prayers
to counteract his bad luck.
[Illustration:
INDIAN WOMEN SPINNING.
To face p. 148.]
When the widow is a child, not yet arrived at the age of living with her
husband, the only ceremony at the death is the cutting of the tali cord.
The other ceremonies and degradations are reserved for the time when she
arrives at the full age of wifehood, when the whole ceremony is enacted
as though the wife had been a real wife, and the little girl-widow is
compelled to join that great army of women in India, nearly twenty
million strong, of whom a million are child-widows.
I met a great many widows in India, and even among the Brahmo Samaj,
which sect is now trying to break the tyrannical yoke of custom, I never
heard of one who dared to brave public opinion and remarry. I knew one
charming widow—I think the most beautiful woman I saw in India—who had
practically broken all class restrictions except this last. It was said
that she had been in love with a man for many years, and he had
repeatedly tried to persuade her to undergo the censure of her people by
marrying him, but she dared not do it. She was only thirty years old,
but she must remain until the end of her life a widow, almost an
outcast.
In the cities and among the modernized people of India this state does
not hold such sorrow for women as in the villages and country districts,
where the people have not come into contact with Western civilization.
In these purely Hindu towns, where all social life is controlled by
custom and the influences of superstition and religion, when the woman
can no longer wear the red mark of wifehood upon her forehead, her case
is pitiable.
The Indian Government has made laws legalizing the remarriage of widows,
but even when it has the Government sanction, custom and tradition are
too strong, and practically no woman will take advantage of it. It would
mean not only lifelong disgrace for her, but also would reflect so
severely upon her relatives and the members of her caste that they would
be involved in endless disgrace.
There are many homes scattered throughout India for these helpless
women. Pundita Ramabai has a place near Poona where she has nearly eight
hundred widows in her charge, and they are a sad sight as they go in
squads of from two to three hundred to their work at the printing press
or at the looms attached to the mission. Some widows had been with her
for years, and quite likely will remain for life, as no one will marry a
widow, and they do not seem to be acquiring a practical education with
which they could earn their living in the world. The Gaekwar of Baroda
is solving the widow question by educating them as teachers at the
Government expense, only asking that in return for his care they devote
a certain number of years as school-teachers in his State.
Pundita Ramabai’s home for widows is a very remarkable institution, and
well repays one for a visit. It is a faith mission—that is, its members
do not receive a salary, but depend upon donations for their support.
What remains after the expenses of the establishment have been met is
divided among the workers according to their needs. They are a very
devoted band, with an orthodox, old-fashioned brand of religion that
holds the wrath of God and the terrors of hell over these emotional
women, whose only outlet for their emotions is their prayers, and at
noon they are permitted to pray aloud and express their desires and
their states of feeling. One day we heard a great buzzing, sounding from
the distance like an immense swarm of bees, and found it was the 1,350
widows, rescued street women, and children having their noonday prayer.
Some of them worked themselves into a veritable ecstasy of religious
emotion, swaying their bodies, the tears running down their faces as
they prayed for the forgiveness of their sins, real or imaginary.
The business manager was more interested in the practical than the
religious aspects of the mission, and looked at the whole question with
the eye of the man who has to provide for all these people who give
nothing to the common good. When asked the outcome of it all, he said he
could not see what good was being accomplished except in the actual
saving of the lives. They could not marry, they could not support
themselves, they were helpless, and would be a burden on others’
shoulders so long as they lived. He said: “Now look! There go four
hundred women who should be married to-morrow; but who will marry them?
No Hindu would dare break his caste by marrying one of them. It would
completely ostracize him from his community. And again, we would not
want to marry a Christian girl to a Hindu or a Mohammedan.”
I asked: “Are there no Christian boys to marry them?”
He replied: “There are not enough to go around, and even a Christian
does not marry a widow.”
“Do you ever have any offers?” I asked.
He laughed. “Yes, once in a while some man takes courage and comes here
to find a wife, but he generally goes away without one. We seem here
rather to go on the principle of getting rid of the speckled apples
first, and if there is a girl with a hare lip, or only one eye, she is
the one trotted out for inspection. Naturally, the boy beats a hasty
retreat, saying he believes he does not want to get married to-day.”
The lot of the widowed woman in India is not so pitiable if she has been
so fortunate as to have borne sons. In India, as in all Eastern
countries, filial piety, the respect for parents, is bred into the very
fibre of the man’s soul. When the mother becomes a widow and dons the
gown of white, her son cares for her and cherishes her all her days. She
is still the ruler of his household, and it would be a most unfilial
son, on whom his world would soon cry shame, if he did not ask the
advice of his mother on matters of importance, nor heed her warnings in
times of stress. Her whole life is given for others, as this world is
supposed to have no joys for her except the joy of service. For her
“this world is but a dream: God alone is real”; and her days are passed
in caring for the many lives around her and in prayers and religious
rites that will help her to more swiftly pass the time ere she may join
her lost one. The woman of India who has lost her mate turns
instinctively to the gods for solace, because she has been taught from
childhood that “the religion of the wife lies in serving her husband:
the religion of the widow lies in serving God.”