A Brief Study of Sati Custom in India

Abstract

The word Sati (Su-thi or Suttee) originally means “a virtuous or good women (wife)”, then, it literary came to be applied to those women, who out of affection for and loyalty towards, their husbands, sacrificed their lives on the death of their husbands. According to a Hindu scripture, “all the actions of a woman should be the same as that of her husband, if her husband is happy, she should be happy, if her husband is sad, she should be sad, and if he is death, she should also die”. Sati began as a story illustrating the intense power of overwhelming love. But when people praised that act of love, it became an instruction manual for how everyone should be. It seemed an ideal goal to love that deeply. But with time Indian women, either physically forced by society or psychologically coerced by the religion, embrace the cult of Sati. The Sati custom was prevalent among certain sects of upper classes of the society in ancient India, who either took the vow or deemed it a great honor to die on the funeral pyre of their husbands. The horrible ritual of Sati was banned by the British government in 1829 by Lord Bentinck, the governor-General of India (1828-1835) and later the Sati Prevention Act 1987. Key words: Sati, Vedas, Cast system, Hindu, widow, Lord Bentinck, Ram Mohan Roy.