The system of early marriage, and the barbarous institution of condemning a Hindoo female to a life of perpetual widowhood after the death of her husband, are evils which cannot be too strongly deprecated. In this country, owing to the prevalence of early marriage and the manner in which it is consummated, a Hindoo does not become a housekeeper immediately after his marriage. The wife generally remains one or two years with her parents, occasionally going to her father-in-law's house for a few days only; her husband pays her a visit now and then, but not without the special invitation of his mother-in-law. The object of such an invitation is evidently to make the son-in-law behave well towards her daughter. For the attainment of this object, as I have described before, no means is left untried. Indeed it has become a proverb among the Hindoos that when a man fares sumptuously, it is said, he has been fed with all the fondness shown to a son-in-law. It has always struck me that if a Hindoo female were permitted to re-marry after the death of her first husband, the affection of a mother-in-law for a son-in-law would not have been so warm as it now is under the existing state of things, which admits of no alternative.

Living under the paternal roof for one or two years after her marriage, a Hindoo girl sometimes becomes a widow,[109]—a state of life which is unspeakably miserable. When a young female of ten or eleven years of age loses her husband, with whom perhaps she had scarcely ever exchanged a single word, she is quite unconscious of the unmitigated misery she is fated to endure for the remainder of her long existence.[110] Deplorable as such a condition undoubtedly is, it becomes doubly miserable from the cold, uncongenial and unsympathetic atmosphere by which she is surrounded, and the uncared-for neglect with which she is treated ever afterwards. Except a mother, who can adequately conceive the thousand and one miseries which are in store for the daughter? It is a gloomy picture from the beginning to the end, and the gloom deepens as time rolls over her devoted head. Cursed be the name of the lawgiver who has made such a cruel ordinance, and cursed the society that has become a thrall to it! Opposed to the feelings of humanity and natural affection, the divine lawgiver of the Hindoos, Manu, expressly enjoins that "although the state of widowhood might be deemed onerous by the fair sex of the west, it would be considered little hardship in the east. Let her emaciate her body, by living voluntarily on pure flowers, roots and fruits, but let her not, when her lord is deceased, even pronounce the name of another man. A virtuous wife ascends to heaven, if, after the decease of her lord, she devote herself to pious austerity; but a widow, who slights her deceased husband by marrying again, brings disgrace on herself here below and shall be excluded from the seat of her lord. Abstinence from the common pursuits of life, and entire self-denial, are rewarded by high renown in this world, and in the next the abode of her lord, and procure for her the title of sadhvi or the virtuous." From the above it is evident that widowhood has prevailed in this country from time out of mind. Its mischievous tendency is apparent in the degraded and corrupt state of female society. We can never thoroughly conquer nature; we can never restrain our passions so effectually as to render ourselves proof against temptation. The frailty of women is admittedly great, and the ease with which they may be seduced into the forbidden paths of life is too well-known to need being enlarged on. However sedulously a Hindoo mother may guard the virtue of her widowed daughter, and however forcibly she may inculcate the doctrine of purity of life and manners, it proves but a feeble barrier against the irresistible impulse of passion. Numerous instances are on record, proving the utter futility of human efforts to contend successfully against nature in this respect. A young widow may be sent to the holy cities of Benares and Brindabun, where she is not unfrequently removed with her mother or grandmother to spend the remainder of her days in a state of isolated seclusion and religious service, but this is a poor safeguard for the preservation of constancy and virtue. Volumes after volumes have been written on the subject, denouncing in an unmistakable manner the monstrous perversity of the existing system, but the evil has taken such a deep root in the social economy of the people that the utmost exertions must be put forth before it can be wholly eradicated.

The evils of widowhood are not only confined to the endurance of accumulated hardships, and self-denials enough to rend asunder the tenderest chord of humanity, but they likewise extend to unlawful connections, and the perpetration of another crime, that of abortion, which is no less revolting in enormity than infanticide itself. Many respectable families, which are otherwise esteemed for their meritorious actions, have more or less sunk in honor from this indelible stigma; a few have even lost their caste and status in society from the above cause. In the primitive state of Hindoo society, when every female other than a wife was regarded either as a mother or sister according to age, irregular intercourse was almost unknown, but in these days of libertinism perfect purity of life is rarely known. Our divine lawgiver, in view to the interests of humanity and female honor, ought to have made proper provision by lending his authority and sanction to a system of widow remarriage within a reasonable period of life. Some such edict would have been alike honorable to our venerable sage, and beneficial to those who are morally and socially most deeply interested in it; but unfortunately his cruel dicta, running counter to the fundamental principles of virtue and morality, have necessarily engendered a rank crop of evils, undermining the very foundation of human happiness.

The benevolent exertions of that high priest of Nature, Pundit Isswara Chunder Vidyasagar, Baboo Keshub Chunder Sen, the Brahmo apostle, and other Hindoo reformers, to promote the cause of widow marriage in particular, and female emancipation in general, have not, it is sad to contemplate, been attended with the measure of success they deserve, simply because the state of Hindoo society is not yet ripe for the innovation. I am, however, sanguine in my expectation that at no very distant future the progress of enlightenment will ultimately bring about the consummation so devoutly to be wished for. It is for the advanced pioneers to endeavour to remove the incrustation which age and learning have formed and tradition and custom enshrined with jealous and sedulous care. Until this is done, a Hindoo widow must continue to mourn her lot amidst the denunciations of a heartless world. Sighs will never cease flowing from her heart so long as she finds herself deprived of the master charm of life. She is now cast amongst the dregs and tatters of humanity. Bereft of the substance of what endears life to a female, she is constrained to cleave to the shadow, which is destined to leave her when she leaves the light of life. Losing all hope of worldly enjoyments, she deposits the treasures of her heart in the sanctuary of religion, convinced that to sell the world for the life to come is profitable. It is terrible to contemplate the awful amount of physical and mental suffering with all its varied complications, to which she is doomed; her life is a steadfast battle against misery, her soul soars in a vacuum where all is unreal, empty and hollow, and all the sweet enjoyments of life fall flat on her taste. Her mental strife is never over. She is like a weary swimmer who throws himself back and floats, because he is too much exhausted to swim longer, yet will not sink and let the cold and merciless water close over his head. Her spirit has broken wildly loose from its normal attitude, and her mind is overwhelmed in a surging tide of misery. From the day she loses her husband, she has a new lease of life, and a miserable lease it must be. She will not cease to lament until her soul itself shall die. If she could say, joy was once her portion, it lighted on her as the bird rests on the tree in passing and takes wing, yet she would now say, her existence is so unlife-like that to her death is sweet. She is a poor fallen outcast of humanity. No one can enter into her feelings and views of things. She has no influence, no control over herself, she cannot turn over a new leaf within her own mind. Though society is almost a necessity of our existence, yet she lives wholly alone; a cheerless train of thoughts always haunts her mind, she feels a dismal void in her heart, she finds herself cut off at once and for ever from one most dear to her, no conversation, however pleasant, can bring her consolation or cheat her grief. The tide of settled melancholy threatens her reason. As an outcast, she is religiously forbidden to take a part in any of the social and domestic concerns of life, tending to relieve the ennui of a wearisome existence, and to enliven the mind for a while. She is a living example of an angel sent by heaven to minister to the comforts of man, turned by a cruel institution into a curse. Estranged from the affection of those who are, by the ties of consanguinity, nearest and dearest to her, she passes her days like a recluse, quite apart from the communion of society. She stares and gazes wildly at every festive celebration, while, as the poet sings,

If she have longings irrepressible and cravings insatiable to lend her hand to any shoova karma (meritorious work), her widowed condition interposes an insurmountable barrier to her participation therein, as if everything would be desecrated when touched by her polluted hand.

As a sentient being, endowed with all the finer susceptibilities of human nature, is it possible that she should so far forget herself as not to feel the bitterest pangs of despondency at her hopelessly forlorn condition? Driven from the genial atmosphere of a social circle, she drags a loathsome existence in this selfish and unsympathetic world. Except she that gave her birth, who would deign to look upon her with love and affection? Instead of being regarded, as she assuredly should be, as the soul of simplicity, a living picture of sweet innocence, she is shunned as one whose very presence portends evil. If she possess unaffected modesty and a keen sense of honor and virtue, who is to recognise and appreciate those amiable qualities in a society which is preposterously estranged from all natural susceptibilities? If she have riches what would that avail her, a poor misguided victim of superstition![111] Her charity, instead of being founded on the catholic principles of genuine liberality shewing a discriminate breadth of view, too often exhibits an unhappy tenacity of adhesion to exclusiveness in the performance of idolatrous ceremonies. If she is placed above the atmosphere of artificialness, it is her misfortune to be surrounded by a concatenation of conventional restrictions which render her life a visible embodiment of helpless misery and anguish, and if she ever appeals, she appeals to the Being who is the only friend of the hopeless and the poor. To attempt to reconcile a widow to her forlorn lot is to tell a patient burning with fever not to be thirsty. Her days are dismal, her nights are dreary.

It was the dread of widowhood, and the unmitigated life-long miseries inseparable from it, that led fifty wives at a time to ascend the funeral pyre of a Rajpoot husband, with all the composure of a philosophic mind. It redounds greatly to the credit of the British Government that its generous exertions have not only struck the death-knell of this inhuman practice, even in the remotest corner of the Empire, but, what is more commendable, endeavoured "to heal the wounds of a country bleeding at every pore from the fangs of superstition."

Not content with depriving her of the best enjoyments of life which society affords, and the laws of God sanction, by condemning her to a state of perpetual widowhood, the great lawgiver—the unflinching foe of freedom in females—has further enjoined the strict observance of certain practices that add gall to her already overflowing cup of misery. As has been observed before, she is restricted to one scanty meal a day, always of the coarsest description, devoid of fish[112] which is generally more esteemed by an ayistree lady than any other article of food in her bill of fare. She must religiously fast on every ekadossee, twice a month, and on all other popular religious celebrations. She must bare her body of all sorts of ornaments, even the iron and the gold bangles, which once constituted the summum bonum of her life. As an appropriate substitute for the gold and pearl necklaces, she is enjoined to wear a toolsee mala (a basilwood chaplet), and count a toolsee wood bead roll for the final rest of her soul. She is prohibited from wearing any bordered clothes, a thayti being her proper garment; she is not permitted to daub her forehead with sidoor, (vermillion), once the pride of her life when her lord was alive; she is forbidden to use any bazar-made article of food, and to complete the catalogue of restrictions she sometimes shaves her head purposely that she may have an ugly appearance and thereby more effectually repel the inroads of a wicked, seductive world.

If she have any children to nurture, the happy circumstance affords a great relief to her wearisomely monotonous life. Day and night she watches them with great care, and looks forward to their progressive development with intense anxiety, forgetting in the plenitude of her solicitude her own forlorn condition. Should there be any mishap in their case, it causes an irreparable break-down in her spirit, which is for ever "sicklied over with the pale cast of thought."

It is a painful fact that riches when not properly used have a tendency to corrupt the minds of human beings, and lead them from the path of virtue to that of vice. A wealthy widow who has the command of a long purse more readily falls a prey to the temptations of the world than one who, moving in an humbler sphere of life, has her mind almost wholly engrossed with domestic cares, and the thoughts of a future state of beatitude. "Verily," as Lord Lytton says, "in the domain of poverty there is God's word."

Considering the endless round of hardship and self abnegations to which she is inevitably doomed by a terrible stroke of fortune, "which scathes and scorches her soul," it is cheering to reflect that she so often shines brightest in adversity. Indeed she may be occasionally said "to die ten times a day," but her incredible powers of patient endurance, coupled with her high sense of female honor, are deserving of the highest admiration.