In India from time immemorial there had been the practice of “Sati” (the wife jumping into the
funeral pyre of the
husband!
Can anyone think of anything more horrendous than this? It still could be practiced in the most distant rural areas. Some time back, in the 1980s a woman immolated herself in the pyre of her
husband in a North India village(I do not remember the exact date). She later became a sort of a goddess and people began to invoke her blessings and the like. There are conflicting reports that she jumped of her free-will and that her relatives threw her into the pyre! How cruel indeed.
The whole thing wants to convey the feeling that women do not deserve a separate life! She has a right to live as a shadow of her husband as far as he is alive. She has no independent life! Or rather she has no right to it. This sort of heinous crimes has been banned by law; but the centuries old attitude that woman is subservient to man still lingers on.
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