Wicked Widows – Tanika Sarkar

A law was enacted to lift the prohibition (customary and textual) on

the remarriage of Hindu widows in 1856. The law also legitimized the
inheritance rights of sons born out of such widows’ remarriage.

 Widow remarriage was thereafter debated furiously in the public

sphere all over India for the rest of the century.

 Sarkar explores the implications of this reform for a normative system

of social power.

 The idea had originated among a small group of Bengali reformers

who persuaded the colonial state to lift the prohibition on widow
remarriage.

 Predictably, the proposal was received with considerable outrage,

horror and repugnancy. A second marriage for a widow was a
scandalous proposition, especially for upper caste Hindus.
 Upper caste norms tied the diverse Hindu castes into a single
community. So, snubbing the notion of widow remarriage
unified many Hindu castes.
 It also strengthened the distinction between Hindus and
Muslims. Muslims propagated widow remarriage, Hindus
condemned it.

 Supporters of the bill: 5,191 signatures

Opponents of the bill: 55,756 signatures

 Widows, second husbands and supporters, all faced intimidation,
ostracism, disinheritance and lampooning in the press.
 Loads of filmy stories – landlords kicking peasants out of
villages, widows abducted by their families, mothers
blackmailing sons with suicide, local police turning a blind eye,
etc.
  Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar – who was a Brahmin of legendary
Sanskrit scholarship and orthodox habits – was the mastermind
behind widow remarriage reform. He was threatened with
death.

 The colonial state had to bear the brunt of the legislation, too.
 The remarriage law was perhaps one of the triggers of 1857.
 The Queen’s Proclamation of 1858 assured no more religious
interference.

 Ultimately, the 1856 Act failed socially – it did not enable renewed
conjugal-sexual life for the majority of Hindu widows.
 By the 1860s, the number of widow remarriages had tapered
off – only 60 in Bengal in all this time. (Interestingly, most were
in upper caste families where the prohibition was the
strongest.)
 In Bombay + South, the returns to intense reformist widow
remarriage campaigns were disappointing.
 In North, Swami Dayanand tried to force childless widows and
widowers to meet and breed, and then forgo all connection
(authoritarian, non-consensual). His Arya Samaj did not
encourage remarriage of this or any other form.
 In 1872, a radical marriage regulation was introduced – inter-
caste, consensual, adult remarriages between partners who
had to renounce their religious denomination. Many widows
married under this 1872 Act instead of the 1856 Act.

 Conclusion: The normative order surrounding widow remarriage may

have lost the legal battle, but they won the social battle – the norms
prohibiting widow remarriage were extremely stable and secure.
 However, the widow remarriage campaign ‘fractured the older
ethnical conventions’ in subtle ways – made them uncertain,
apologetic, and in need of justification.
 The questioning went beyond the remarriage issue. Gender
power, social inequality, scriptural prescription of customs –
were all questioned.

HISTORIOGRAPHICAL DEBATE ABOUT 19th C LIBERAL REFORM

 Sangari & Vaid are skeptical towards liberal reform.
 Reform was not a transformation, rather it was a pale
imitation/reiteration of Western patriarchy by Indian
bourgeoisie.
 This equates Indian modernity to colonial capitalism  i.e.
bleak times of loss and regress.
 Sarkar asks: Was it really so bad?
 Sarkar: Skepticism towards liberal reform is out of context.
 It unnecessarily fixes the original intentions (i.e. to mask
Victorian patriarchy) of liberal reformism which developed in
the West onto its functions elsewhere. Companionate marriage
was probably an intervention in the sexual-emotional lives of
Hindus rather than a patriarchal ploy to mask the subjugation
of women.

 Skeptics also undervalue the powerful politics of Hindu

orthodoxy, chauvinism and status-quoism in the colonial era.

 Though the widow remarriage reform did not ultimately lead

to equality, there was at least a mention of this word in a
context that was so very resistant to such a notion. (‘Equality’
was used with revulsion by the orthodoxy, and defiance by the
reformers.)

 Around this emergent counter-norm (i.e. the possibility of

‘equality’), a social criticism seeped into public debates – about
gender relations, consent and coercion, the ethic of hierarchy.
 Eventually, a few women even entered this arena of debate.

SATI VS. WIDOW REMARRIAGE

 While reform was enabled by colonial law, it was not a gift from
colonial masters (who were really aligned with upper caste
patriarchy).

 Personal law, relating to religion, family and community norms, was

among the few spaces still dominated by the natives.
o The legislature would not intervene unless an existing law
contravened more authentic religious prescription.
 o Petitioners of the bill complained that the state relied
unnecessarily on religious commands in matters that ought to
be governed by civil law, e.g. widow remarriage.

 In 1837, the Law Commission, in an attempt to curb infanticide,

suggested a law enabling widows to remarry (most infanticide
resulted from illicit pregnancies from widows). But there was official
hesitation for fear of religious backlash. The idea was rejected.
 In 1855, it was revived when Vidyasagar approached the legislature
with a scriptural basis for widow remarriage. By July 1856, the Act
was in place.

 The state acted much more quickly on the issue of widow remarriage
than sati (where the debate went on for sixty years). Perhaps
because sati debates happened in the orientalist phase of scriptural
exploration, whereas widow remarriage was discussed in a climate of
utilitarian impatience with traditions.

 Yet, WRM utilitarianism employed orientalist techniques, or was a

more modest form of utilitarianism.
o Officials scrapped the 1837 bill in a utilitarian time due to the
absence of scriptural citation + lack of a representative leader
to back it (Young Bengal was too defiant and radical to cut it) –
so they embraced tradition over reform.
o Arguments for the reform in 1855-56 were not based on social
intervention, but on scriptural arguments (just like sati).
o Sati Act was binding, while WRM law was permissive – it didn’t
impose a decision on Hindus who didn’t agree with WRM,
unlike SA which prohibited sati even for those who believed in
it.
o Vidyasagar’s significance to the state was due to his stature as
a traditional Brahmin pandit and not a liberal reformist.

Thus, this modest utilitarianism expressed greater readiness to

accept a ‘liberal version of dogma’.
 Protestant missionaries who were at the forefront of the sati
agitation played a marginal role in the WRM reform. Their focus had
shifted from the staunch upper castes to the more amenable lower
castes for conversion. So, unlike the sati agitation, the WRM
campaign was entirely an Indian initiative.

 Legislature decided to print its proceedings in the press. In turn, they

learnt how matters were viewed by Indians. This circular flow of info
facilitated informal consultation between Indians and lawmakers.

 Some key features of discipline of Hindu widowhood will be

underlined and then related to the debates on remarriage so as to
explore the implications of the reform for a normative system of
social power.
 Remarriage- scandalous proposition especially among the upper
castes, where women were supposed to be extremely virtuous.
 Here is where the difference between Hindu and Muslims beliefs can
be briefly highlighted, in a debate for which is better, Muslims: It is
against nature to not allow for remarriage as every month the
‘female flower blossoms to bear fruit’-should not be wasted. But
Hindus believed, it is against human nature, only a cow will run after
more than one bull.
 Reformers urging legalization of re-marriage: challenged brahmanical
mandate. Opposition had gathered more support owing to the idea
‘seeming repugnant’.
 Social ostracization for those who remarried, beating up and
expulsion from villages.
 Widows who sometimes desired remarriage were sometimes
abducted to distant places and kept there by the outraged families.
 Men who were to marry them faced disinheritance, breaking most of
these marriages.
 Vidyasagar- pioneer in the movement, special efforts to see through
some remarriages-gave the required support.
 British-needed to be cautious-realised after passing the Bill, for threat
of a rebellion. Queen Victoria: reassured no further interference with
social and cultural practices.
 Later a special enactment was even passed for inter-caste marriages,
partners had to declare they did not belong to any particular
denominations.
 What did the Hindu Common sense find so offensive about
remarriage?
 Opponents were concerned with how remarriage may roll onto
gender equality, opposed to laws of nature and laws of Hindus,
theory in which capabilities are inherently unequal in Males and
Females.

2.
 Colonial authority only came into picture for reform when
community leaders could prove that an existing law contravened
more authentic religious prescription.
 To stamp out infanticide, Sir John Shore and Sudder Diwani Adalat
suggested criminalizing concealed pregnancies, rejected by law
commission-make a suspected offence into a positive offence.
 It was suggested that a solution to this would be to formally legalize
widow remarriage-was strongly advised against by courts as doing so
would interfere - widow’s ‘life of chastity and privation’ was both
‘religious and a moral obligation’.
 While some Indian reformers spoke of gender equality and reform
that detached itself from scriptural injunctions-colonial rulers were
satisfied in consolidating a patriarchy in India that was even more
extreme than Victorian morality.
 Perhaps, India was a playground to them for a different social
imagination, something they could not do back home. So what
caused the change in 1856?
 While Sat abolition took 60 years, widow remarriage fairly quick-
though initially rejected in 1830s, revived again with Vidyasagar’s
plea to have a legislation in favor of it.
 Sati was abolished in an orientalist phase, whereas widow remarriage
was in an impatient utilitarian phase with traditional institutions
having the upper hand at the moment.
 Scope was modest making it easier to pass, (not binding like sati on
those who didn’t agree with the terms) + Vidyasagar’s scriptural
arguments were included and not utilitarian transformative designs
and social intervention.
 Unlike Sati, remarriage campaign was rather entirely an Indian
initiative (Missionaries were more involved in the cause of peasants
of indigo plantations as well as focused on the lower castes as there
was much more scope for conversions there).
 Although there was discussion of direct representation of Indian
opinion, especially in issues such as remarriage, it was decided that
Indian opinion will be consulted representatively indirectly.

3.
 There is a distinction between transgression and prescription:
defiance from prescription does not invalidate normativeness of
prescriptive laws- people who have defied prescriptive laws came to
constitute a minority group-‘social outcasts’-rarely claiming explicit
terms for their transgression.
 Norms are stratified-lower castes are not required to observe upper-
caste domestic practice. Eg. Higher chaste model amongst upper
caste and alternatives said to imply lowliness. Upper-caste gender
rules continuously encourage lower castes to move up towards them
if possible.
 Marriage was sacramental-girl had to be married off, lose her
childhood, when the husband dies she is supposed to be condemned
to a life of abstinence but! Widower is expected to marry again to
conduct rites of a householder.
 Hindu marriage did not depend on consummation for formalization-
complete the moment when rituals are performed (still the same
today :p).
 Wife expected to be subordinate to father in childhood, husband in
youth and son in old age.
 Manu: Wife-Ardhangini-half-body of her husband =>even after his
death wife lived on through him, hence marriage never ended. Harsh
regime of self-deprivation, renunciation from all pleasures of life.
Texts mention that thus, good woman does not remarry and
marriage rites apply only to a virgin.
 Vidyasagar: 5 conditions: ‘if husband was ruined, dead, renunciate or
impotent or outcast, under such special circumstances wife is
allowed to take another husband’: Parashara.
 Nandapandita commentary: these conditions are contingent, do not
apply to a married woman.
 Woman is defined as embodying lack of self-possession and
autonomy.

4.
 Child marriage-widespread amongst all castes: 1891 census-widows
under 10 years formed 6 per cent of total married girls (most of the
widows for sure)
 An elaborate mechanism was constructed for ensuring a regime of
depravity.
 Strict scant diet devoid of apparent ‘aphrodisiac’ containing
properties, denied of many pulses to avoid the body from going into
heat.
 Dress: white, no jewelry (symbolize status as non-wife).
 Debarred from all rituals and auspicious ceremonies. Some children
sent back home, married mothers would enjoy good food and jewelry
and sleep with their husband to demarcate her absolute difference
from the widow.
 Paradox within widowhood regime: expected to do this on her own
will at the same time to be coerced.
 Like the Thugees- crime was not due to individual action but social
status
 Male guardians could sexually exploit the widow-no stigma arose
here.

5.
 Familial policing stringent-societal pressure –loss of caste for entire
family for such shameful activities.
 Secret abortions or infanticides, increasingly common among
widows. Often such widows were even poisoned for illicit
pregnancies and many went missing.
 A Calcutta Coroner reported: A widow who was married at 10 and
widowed at 13 had been thrown out of her matrimonial home and
somewhere during her search to shelter she had become pregnant.
She received no help from any family members or neighbours and
eventually ended up coming to her old ancestral home dying due to a
miscarriage or self-induced abortion.
 Although there was a law that regardless of her chastity, a widow
could inherit her deceased husband’s property, the act had not
disrupted the penal regime of social ostracization. Colonial law feebly
tried to interfere in the normative order.

6.
 Although customary law allowed her share in husband’s property,
she was more often cheated than not and there was no property she
could inherit from her father.
 Normative discipline protected itself further owing to her economic
vulnerability.
 Further, childless younger widows were worst off. Reformers were
embarrassed to find a disproportionately large number of widows in
Calcutta’s brothels
 Later anxieties developed over losing the Hindu population if widows
were to elope with Muslims (who permitted remarriage) or through
conversion.
 Inheritance rights to sons born out of remarriages: such sons were
polluted and so could not be allowed to override superior claims of
pure born even if more distant male heirs.
 Hindu marriage, succession and inheritance-collective lineage
decisions. Law? Operated on narrow, individualistic basis thinking it
only concerns 2 partners.
 The only category of sons who could inherit: dattak-adopted or
auras-born out of legal father. (pournabhabas-second marriage son)
 Vidyasagar: the ancient times did not recognize pournabhabas, but
now they are engrossed under the category of legal heir (auras) and
so should be entitled to property. Colonial government accepted this
idea.
 BUT: tried to disarm opposition (orthodox) by laying down that the
remarried widow could forfeit all her rights to the first husband’s
property on remarriage, even though lower castes may allow for it.
There was opposition for this, law should be most ‘enabling’,
conferring new rights not abolishing old ones.
 Further! The remarried widow would lose all custodial rights to the
children from her first marriage. Surprisingly no opposition to this.
(because they should along with forfeiting sexual desire and property
rights, also forfeit custody of children in the first marriage).
 Above two parts of the law indicate the strong hegemony of
orthodoxy.

7. Actually this is 8. 7 Brags about Vidyasagar’s knowledge of Sanskrit

and scriptural interpretation, he shut orthodox opposition with it.
 Vidyasagar: remarriage had scriptural basis and violated false custom.
Spoke about harm caused due to the practice: infanticide,, secret
liason, foeticide etc. Further the sages wanted same laws for men
and women and then he posited legal equality. With respect to the
idea that they should forego desire with widowhood, he speak of the
body not being made of stone and such cannot be expected, pities
the women for being born in such a country. (double standards when
it comes to sex- men can and women can’t).
 To remarry or not, involved a trade-off between his reformism and
his word of honour: decision entailing two types of pity: for parents
and for girl. (story in which he promised parents he won’t remarry
their daughter but when his relatives remarried her, he was super
angry and went ape shit about his honour).