Widows - Burning in the Fire of Rejection

Widows: Burning in the fire of rejection

Shunned from society, widows flock to city to die

July 05, 2007

[Link: http://articles.cnn.com/2007-07-05/world/damon.india.widows_1_widows-vrindavan-india?_s=PM:WORLD ]

Ostracized by society, thousands of India's widows flock to the holy city of Vrindavan waiting to die. They are found on side streets, hunched over with walking canes, their heads shaved and their pain etched by hundreds of deep wrinkles in their faces.

These Hindu widows, the poorest of the poor, are shunned from society when their husbands die, not for religious reasons, but because of tradition -- and because they're seen as a financial drain on their families.

They cannot remarry. They must not wear jewelry. They are forced to shave their heads and typically wear white. Even their shadows are considered bad luck.

Today, widows are not made to sit on the cremation pyre of their husband, they are not forced to shave off their heads but still they are bound to lead a life of despair and dejection. The Stories like the one mentioned above will keep on coming until our society will stop its inequitable and unjust behavior towards widows and they would enjoy all their rights like any other normal person.

As per census 2001, there are 34.29 million widows in India and out of them 72.75 % live in rural areas3. This is a significant percentage of female population of India. However, when we only take women aged sixty or above, this percentage rises to a staggering 55% compared to about 15% for widower men2. From all these data we can infer certain things about our society. The first would be a clear gender bias in the case of re-marriages. At one hand, where Hindu widowers are re-marrying easily, our society restricts re-marriages for widows. If widows are having children or are aged more than 35 then there re-marriage is almost impossible in our society. Widows are expected to lead a life of mourning for their dead husbands. Our society has...