Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.701

c7.701

The unchaste widow forfeits all her claims The widow forfeits her claim to maintenance and the right of inheritance allowed to her in the later texts as soon as she violates her faith to her deceased husband. She is then a "wanton woman" (*svairiṇī*) and even if under the pressure of extreme poverty she surrenders herself to a strangor (Nār. 12,51), she will be excommunicated from the caste if she does not perform one of the prescribed penances and her touch pollutes everybody who comes near her (Par. 10,26-35). The son of a Brahman widow (golaka, raṇḍagolaka in the modern caste lists)¹ belongs to the most hated castes who cannot be invited to a Śrāddha (M. 3, 156, 174).