WIDOW REMARRIAGE

A Brief History

Socio religious reforms came to the forefront as part of the larger movement of change in India in the 19th century. This Reform movement aimed to transform certain ‘evils’ of the society and contemporary religious ideologies. These reforms were led by different strands of Hindu Reformers including Arya, Brahmo and Sanatan.

The requirement of a social subject for the reforms was more or less fulfilled by the women and the lower caste. What was however a major obstacle, was the fact that the idea of reform remained a part of the discussion of only a few upper caste men and as we shall see, was not always aimed towards the upliftment of these weaker sections.

Widow Remarriage became a significant issue for reform among several others including the abolition of the practice of sati, women education and a modification of the caste based evils. The British held a keen interest in the reform movement. Their early writings project the pitiful condition of the women in the Indian society. In fact, the British used the wrongs of the society as an ostensible reason for their rule, providing legitimacy to the notion of the ‘white man’s burden’. The gender centric reforms that were under the scanner were inherently linked with one another.

Widow remarriage was prohibited among the Hindu upper caste and children born so were considered illegitimate, snatching from them the right to inheritance of property. Since the age of consent was as much a problem, making child marriage the societal norm, child widows were even greater sufferers of the evil. Tanika Sarkar and Sumit Sarkar do make a case in point by highlighting that among the lower caste, neither child marriage nor the prohibition of widow remarriage was a common problem. Following the efforts of several leaders including Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Pandita Ramabai, it was only in 1856 that the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act was issued as a statutory law. While a widow could legally remarry, much less so in practice, she could not, if she remarried, claim any share in the property of her earlier husband. It was only with the Hindu Women’s Rights to Property Act 1937 that the widows could claim their share of property even after remarriage. The issue of legitimacy of the children born out of the remarriage still remained and it was finally in the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 that
the property could finally be inherited by the children so born. It must be noted here that while there were a number of clauses hindering the applicability of these laws, the trajectory towards the reform of Widow Remarriage was a long one. It was over several years that the different
aspects of the ‘social evil’ could be addressed.

In the discussion of the legal route to the reform, Lucy Carroll highlights that the law came in three forms: Customary Law, Hindu Law and the Statutory Law. Prior to the Hindu Widow Remarriage Act, as the custom laid, a widow could inherit her husband’s property only in the absence of a son, son’s son and son’s son’s son. Hindu Law took its place and brought all the customs under the ambit of what was ‘Hindu’, perhaps to reduce any difficulties in legal groupings. This, Lucy Carroll rightfully terms the ‘Hinduization of Tribals’ and ‘Brahminization of the lower caste’. However, Tanika Sarkar points out that the low caste Hindu widows did challenge the laws of inheritance in place in 1856, stating that there were multiple customs
being followed which could not be clubbed under one category of ‘Hindu Law’. In this respect, Lucy Carroll identifies if widow remarriage was part of a custom of a certain section of the society, property could not be forfeited unless it was also a part of the custom. However, the forfeiture of property was lawful as a part of the Section 2 if widow remarriage was brought into
force through the Act of 1856 itself. However the most important part of Lucy Carroll’s work is her recognition of the shortcomings of the codification of a customary law. She states that the codification leads to a fixation of customs that strictly prevents further evolution which happened in this case.

Having discussed the legal aspects of the reform, we must turn our sight towards the actual
practice of the prohibition of widow remarriage in the first case and its legitimacy in the second.

As we have seen, the lower caste Hindu communities did not usually prohibit remarriage initially as well. To add to our thought, Prem Chowdhry’s work is exemplary. He presents an alternate model where widow remarriage was already much prevalent, particularly in Punjab. Based on folklore, oral tradition, beliefs and festivals, he points out that in the lack of absolute Brahmanical influence, relations between a married woman and the male members of her husband’s family were often always existing and marrying her to the dead man’s brother was only a ‘formalisation’ of such a practice. He uses the example of karewa, a ritual in which a white sheet coloured at the corners was thrown by the man over the widow as an acceptance of
her as his wife. The following proverb is also an example of the practice of widow remarriage being common in Haryana : “aja beti lele phere, yoh margay to aur bhotere” (Come Daughter, get married, if this husband dies there are many more).

Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar played a vital role in the unfolding of this reform. However, Sekhar Bandyopadhyay in his study of widow remarriage, particularly in Bengal, argues that it was not purely the plight of the widow that concerned Vidyasagar and other reformers but the need to control the ‘falling standards of public morality’ in the form of adultery and foeticide. It was a paternalistic, patriarchal control over the bodies of women that produced a requirement of the reform. Child marriage and koolin polygamy were leading to an increase in the cases of adultery in widowhood and thus the reformers who accepted the Hindu power structure and hierarchy
based their arguments for the reform with the help of reasoning, claims to shastras and changes in local customs. It was also argued that the biological libidinal urge of women required them to remarry as else they would engage themselves in 'notorious unchastity’. The fight for the ‘traditional elites’ became a fight for hegemony and authority which they wanted to exert on the lower caste. In this respect, eventually the lower caste began to adhere to the customs of the upper caste in hope for upward mobility. The traditionalization of the society was a process that received an impetus through the spread of printing press and education.

Thus the 'reform of the popular culture' ultimately led to a 'Counter Reform' that failed the struggle for reform. It in fact, led to the valorization of widow celibacy and encouragement of its prohibition in popular culture. Conversions to Islam and Christianity also increased in order to legitimise remarriage and thus the reform failed in its outcome. The reform also failed in terms of
the real voices of women which participated in this reform movement. Bamabodhini Patrika in fact reflected the only female voice while other women who had already been conditioned to the
societal norms, never felt the need to raise their voices. Thus, the reform failed in not one but all its aspects. The upper caste were supposed to do what the lower caste already did, which was not acceptable to the elites. On the contrary, even the lower caste began to valorize widowhood and the women along with the lower caste and other religious communities remained marginalised from the entire process. Nationalist writers and the early British historiography project the reform of widow remarriage, and the reform movement in general, as a successful step. They hold on to the customary roots while viewing the reform movement as a great achievement. Subaltern studies on the other hand state that coercive power was centric to the
modern life and therefore it was not a reform to bring about what women want but only to ‘modernize’ them, having been influenced by the British. The reform movement is yet, glorified by the Nationalist writers and the colonial thinkers. While the colonial scholars like James Mill used the condition of women in a society as a measure of its ‘civilization’, and justified the
British rule for the emancipation of such groups in the colonized state, the Nationalists viewed the reform movement as one where the indigenous influence has been responsible for a ‘progressive’ reform and more importantly that it has been absolutely successful. However,
recent historiography rejects this notion as highlighted in Sekhar Bandyopadhyay’s arguments of the counter reform, valorization, religious conversions, marginalisation of the targeted group and the inherent idea of patriarchal control among others. Thus, in reality no real reform
occurred as it failed to solve its purpose which continues to be a problem even in the contemporary times. Legislation was not the solution to the problem of prohibition of widow remarriage which was deep rooted in the societal norms and continues to remain so.

Bibliography

● Sarkar, Tanika. Sarkar, Sumit. Introduction, Women and Social Reform in Modern India: A Reader
● Carroll, Lucy. Law, Custom and Statutory Social Reform: The Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act of 1856, Women and Social Reform in Modern India
● Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar. Caste, Widow-Remarriage, and the Reform of Popular Culture in Colonial Bengal, Women and Social Reform in Modern India
● Chowdhry, Prem. Customs in a Peasant Economy: Women in Colonial Haryana, Women and Social Reform in Modern India
● Kapadia
● Historiography: Women and Reforms, Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi.
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