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WIDOWS AND THEIR TORMENTORS
If anything can cast a ray of comfort into the wretched life of a
Hindoo maiden or wife it is the thought that, after all, she is much
better off than if she were a widow--though, to be sure, she runs
every risk of becoming one ere she is old enough to be considered
marriageable in any country where women are regarded as human beings.
In considering the treatment of Hindoo widows we reach the climax of
inhuman cruelty--a cruelty far exceeding that practised by American
Indians toward female prisoners, because more prolonged and involving
mental as well as physical agonies.
In 1881 there were in British India alone 20,930,000 widows, 669,000
of whom were under nineteen, and 78,976 _under nine_ years of
age.[269] Now a widow's life is naturally apt to be one of hardship
because she has lost her protector and bread-winner; but in India the
tragedy of her fate is deepened a thousandfold by the diabolical
ill-treatment of which she is made the innocent victim. A widow who
has borne sons or who is aged is somewhat less despised than the child
widow; on her falls the worst abuse and hatred of the community,
though she be as innocent of any crime as an angel. In the eyes of a
Hindoo the mere fact of being a widow is a crime--the crime of
surviving her husband, though he may have been seventy and the wife
seven.
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