The Position of Women in Hindu Civilisation, from Prehistoric Times to the Present Day c9.29

c9.29

The custom was gradually struggling into existence in the early centuries of the Christian era. Hence, as shown above, we get stray references to it in the later portions of the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, and in the present version of some Purāṇas. *Vishṇusmṛiti* (*c.* 100 A.D.) thinks the custom to be not illogical; it advanced the view that in spite of diversity of Karman, a widow can, though other relations cannot, go the way of the departed soul by dying after him¹. The custom, however, was not yet regarded as a religious duty. Vishṇu himself does not recommend it, he merely mentions it. He is in fact one of the earliest writers to recognise the widow as an heir to her husband; he allows her to remarry also (17, 43).