A History of the Mahrattas v1.c24.100

v1.c24.100

¹ [Suttee was prohibited during the administration of Lord William Bentinck by the Bengal Regulation XVII, dated December 4, 1829, extended in 1830 to Madras and Bombay. The advocates of the practice unsuccessfully appealed to the Privy Council. Several European officers defended the custom. A well-written account of the Suttee legislation is given in D. Boulger’s work on Lord William Bentinck, in the *Rulers of India* series. The word *Satī* (Suttee) properly means a virtuous woman, especially one who burns herself with her husband, and in common parlance has been transferred to the actual sacrifice of the woman. (Sleeman’s *Rambles*, &c., ed. V. A. Smith (1915), pp. 18, 19.) A succinct history of Suttee will be found on p. 665, *O.H.I.* See also Tylor, *Primitive Culture*, i. 464 ff.]