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BOOKS
Women
of a Lesser World
Widow's
lot: a social status steeped in myth and despair
By
Ritu Menon
 |
Perpetual
Mourning: Widowhood in Rural India
By Martha Alter Chen
Oxford
Price: Rs. 642 |
Added
to the long list of things India is infamous for is the fact that we have
the highest incidence of widowhood in the world. There were 33 million
widows in 1991, 55 per cent of all women over 60 are widowed, and a shocking
30,000 are under 15. By contrast, the number of widowers is significantly
lower—less than 3 per cent of the total male population—primarily
because they are allowed to remarry.
If one were
to be (only a little) facetious, one could say that the single most important
reason for widowhood is marriage. And since marriage is nearly universal
in India, there is little hope of escaping widowhood. Martha Alter Chen's
exhaustive study of the myths and reality surrounding it uncovers one
of the most deplorable examples of callous social neglect in our country,
cloaked in piety and humbug.
Three stark
images make up the picture of the Hindu widow—the child widow, the
Sati, and the ascetic widow-and all three reinforce the stigma and inauspiciousness
attached to widowhood. So much so, that despite their rather large presence
in society, relatively little is known about how widows live their lives.
Who cares
for them? Given the myth of the ideal joint family, one would expect them
to be enfolded by it. In fact, the majority of widows-95 per cent of them-never
live with their in-laws. Only 5 per cent live with their parents, 40 per
cent with adult sons (many of whom are actually dependent on their mothers)
and, most surprisingly, over 50 per cent live in what Chen calls "female
households". These are households in which widows may live alone
with their unmarried children or with other single women. In fact, more
widows live with the latter (usually other widows) than with male in-laws,
fathers or brothers.
Yet, why
should this surprise us? Given the humiliation most widows experience
at the hands of male kin and the absence of any social security worth
the name, where else can they find succour except in a community of women?
Despite the cultural sanctions against it, more daughters than sons help
widowed mothers, while more sons indirectly "inherit" their
father's property, than widows.
"Why
marry again? Why repeat a tragedy?" asked a 32-year-old widow whom
Chen interviewed. Why, indeed? Was the Widow Remarriage Act such a good
thing after all? Not if a widow has to forfeit her right to her husband's
property, or if one goes by the stories in this book. Most remarriages
are imposed and, in the north, leviratic, usually to the woman's disadvantage.
Driven to it either because they were widowed young, have no means of
support or have been rejected by parents and in-laws, remarriage seldom
means an end to oppression or discrimination. But here again, the southern
states have a better record. More widows inherit their husband's property,
almost half remain in their natal villages with a more supportive community,
and 65 per cent live in female households as against 37 per cent in the
north.
This overall
dismal picture is relieved somewhat by the accounts of the spirit and
resilience of many widows in the book, as well as by evidence that matrilineal
societies are a widow's best guarantee of a dignified life. A Kerala Nair
woman's greatest advantage was that never having been formally "married"
to one man, she could never really be "widowed", and, of course,
she could never be alienated from her property. It's a pity that matriliny
has more or less vanished, because patriarchal arrangements-whether in
families or in society—have precious little to offer the Hindu widow
in India, even today.
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