The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c8.97

c8.97

The different angles of vision with which the question of the remarriage of the widow and the widower was viewed at this time also show a growing callousness to the feelings and sentiments of women, and an inordinate anxiety to avoid the least inconvenience and discomfort to men. We shall see in Chapter V how widow marriages were completely frowned out of existence by about 600 A. D. The rising tide of asceticism, which was mainly responsible for this development, did not however affect the position of the widower at all. Nay, strangely enough the prospects of his immediate remarriage brightened up. The earlier times did not hold that a widower could not discharge his religious duties except by marrying a second time. The *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* expressly states that a widower can continue his Vedic sacrifices even if he remains unmarried; his devotion (*śraddhā*) will be his figurative wife¹. Vishṇu (*c.* 100 A.D.) does not regard remarriage as a religious necessity; he points out that an image of the dead wife can well serve the sacrificial purpose². Śrī-Rāmachandra concurred with this view, for when separated from Sītā, he performed his sacrifices with an image of his wife by his side. He did not deem it necessary to marry a second time in order to have a living wife with him during the performance of his sacrifices. In course of time, however, widowers, who would spend their remaining life in nourishing the memory of their departed wives, began to become rarer and rarer. A second marriage for the widower was soon declared to be a religious necessity by some obliging Smṛiti writers. After describing the funeral of the wife, Manu immediately proceeds to inform the bereaved husband that he ought to marry again¹. How could household sacrifices be properly performed without the presence and cooperation of a wife ? The texts which permitted the performance of the sacrifices with the effigy of the dead wife were explained away with the usual ingenuity of commentators. The wife can never be represented ; she must be always present in person. She had to do personally some work in the sacrifice like the pounding of the rice etc.; obviously this could not be done by an effigy. So the second marriage was an absolute religious necessity for the widower². It would not have been difficult to show that the same would be the case for the widow as well. The son was an imperative necessity for offering oblations to the manes, and it could well have been argued that a widow should lose no time in marrying again for ensuring the continuance of the family. No Smṛiti writer, however, has cared to take this stand.