Suttee

Suttee (an English spelling of the Sanskrit sati, 'a virtuous wife'), a usage long prevalent in India, in accordance with which on the death of her husband the faithful widow burned herself on the funeral pyre along with her husband's body, or, if he died at a distance, was burned on a pyre of her own. The practice was in use in India as early as the times of the Macedonian Greeks, and was based by Hindus on various of their sacred books and laws (the Brahma-Purāna, the Vyāsa, &c.). But the researches of European scholars have made it absolutely certain that no countenance to this barbarous rite can be derived from the oldest and most sacred scriptures. The few passages professedly cited from the Vedas have been proved to be misquoted, garbled, or wholly false; and the laws of Mann are silent on the subject. Nevertheless self-immolation, though not enforced on an unwilling victim, and not practised except in certain castes and families of old descent, was almost made incumbent on well-born widows by force of public opinion, unless they were willing to risk their own happiness here and hereafter. The rite was no doubt entirely alien to pure Brahmanism, and was derived from a belief common to many savage races at all times of the world's history, that it was well to send wives, slaves, horses, favourite weapons, &c. along with a great man into the other world, by burying them with him, burning or slaying them at his tomb. In 1823 there were 575 widows burned in Bengal Presidency, 310 within the jurisdiction of the Calcutta court. Of these 109 were above sixty years of age, 226 from forty to sixty, 208 from twenty to forty, and 32 under twenty (Max-Müller, Biographical Essays, 1884). When Lord William Bentinck resolved to put an end to this hideous sacrifice he was met by fierce opposition both from natives and Europeans, though backed by some official and public opinion. And on the 4th December 1829 he carried the regulation in council which made all who encouraged suttee guilty of culpable homicide. The enactment soon told on the custom. The prohibition of suttee is a feature of treaties between the imperial government and the native states; and though occasional cases of suttee occur in native territory, and rarely within the British area (on the death of Sir Jung Bahadur, prime-minister of Nepal, in 1877 several of his wives immolated themselves), suttee may be said to be practically extinct.