Page:History of India Vol 9.djvu/133

CAUSES FOR SELF-IMMOLATION 101 bidden. It is hardly likely, indeed, that Hindu women would go to the length of committing a crime which must render their lot much worse than before! At the same time I am by no means inclined to attribute these vol- untary sacrifices to an excess of conjugal affection. We should, for instance, be greatly mistaken were we to allow ourselves to be deceived by the noisy lamentations which wives are accustomed to raise on the death of their hus- bands, and which are no more than rank hypocrisy. During the long period of my stay in India, I do not recall two Hindu marriages character- ized by a union of hearts and displaying true and mutual attachment. When a woman, after ma- ture deliberation, has once declared that she desires to be burned alive with her de- ceased husband, her decision is considered irrevoca- ble. She cannot afterwards retract; and should she refuse to proceed of her own free will to the funeral pyre, she would be dragged to it by force. The Brah- mans who regulate all the proceedings of the tragedy, A TYPE OF BRAHMAN WOMAN.