Why pay attention to widows?

Human rights are meant for all human beings and widows are as much entitled to a life of their own as widowers and all other humans, writes Mineke Schipper

‘As soon as the tree is felled, the shrub next to it does not mean anything anymore.’ (Minyanka proverb, Mali)

‘Don’t marry a widow unless her husband was hanged,’ is an English example of in-laws inclined to suspect a widow of her husband’s death. Proverbs in different parts of the world warmly encourage widowers to remarry, such as ‘Grief for a dead wife lasts to the door.’

In the meantime, countless widows obediently followed their husbands to death. In all continents, monuments and documents witness how women joined dead men — buried or burnt alive, hanged, strangled or beheaded, drowned, stabbed or shot. A preference for strangling was inspired by the idea that the victim would enter the next world ‘intact’.

For a decent and proper widow, her own death was the best proof that she had loved her husband. Or was it considered her duty? How reciprocal that ardent love between spouses had been, we’ll never know. Such issues were not addressed, the existing hierarchy was self-evident. An old Polish text asserts that, after the burning of the body of her husband, ‘every wife allowed herself to be beheaded and went with him into death’. Husbands joining a dead wife have been extremely rare.

According to an ancient Hindu legend, Sati is the goddess of marital happiness and a long-married life. She was her father Daksha’s favourite child, but when she married the god Shiva against her father’s will, he humiliated her by not inviting Shiva to a huge party he was planning to host. Sati tried to persuade her father, but when he refused, she summoned her yogic strengths and set herself on fire amid the assembled gods. She was the perfect devoted sati, though the meaning ‘a widow loyal to her husband who dies by immolation’ would only come later. In this tradition, a link was also established between marriage and the cremation ritual of burning widows in India and other countries in the Indo sphere.

Sati is an old Sanskrit word, originally meaning ‘that which exists’ or ‘that which is true’, but over time sati came to mean ‘the ideal woman’, initially from a purely male perspective, but as so often happens, women have bought into this projected ideal of submissive devotion. 

By entering the flames alongside her husband, she was united with him, symbolised during the marriage ceremony by the tossing of a handful of rice into the fire as an offering, thereby linking marital and physical faithfulness to death. Only widows were allowed to join their husbands in the searing flames of his cremation; the opposite was unthinkable in this tradition.

A widowed woman often went on to the pyre dressed in festive wedding clothes, replete with bangles and bracelets, items that she would never wear again nor be allowed to wear as a widow; wearing these jewels in this dramatic moment confirms how crucial her status as a married woman was. This bridal symbolism was essential, as a widow was not an independent person; she remained the ‘other half’, half the body of her husband, and that did not change upon his death.

A widow starting a life of her own has long been and is often still viewed as a disgrace as long as the community keeps judging her in terms of the well-being of the deceased husband. If she must ensure that her husband is well off in the hereafter, she must continue to work for their blissful reunion after her death for the rest of her life.

Following one’s husband in death was not only an exemplary performance, but the honour of the family and the all-encompassing chastity of girls and women were usually also at stake. And control over female dependence is still cherished.

Over the centuries and worldwide, degrading traditions for widows have been abolished or are in the process of disappearing. However, life for so many widows is still challenging.

Significantly the Japanese word for widow literally means ‘she who has not yet died’. Is she supposed to just sit out her days in the waiting room of Death? ‘Not yet dead’ is the situation we all find ourselves in. Indeed, our days are finite, and therefore every day is unique and precious.

Human rights are meant for all human beings, and widows are as much entitled to a life of their own as widowers and all other humans.

(The author is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, and Emeritus Professor of Intercultural Literary Studies at the University of Leiden. She recently published Widows: A Global History with Speaking Tiger Books.)