Hinduism’s Treatment of Women: The Practice of Sati

One of the most gripping concepts in history is the Hindu practice of suttee or sati - the practice of expecting, or even requiring, that a widow, upon the death of her husband, commit suicide. This was often carried out in the form of self-immolation: the widow threw herself onto her husband’s funeral pyre.

This is the most jarring example of Hinduism’s view of women, but there are many other more mundane examples.

Hinduism lays a conceptual foundation for cultural and social practices which ascribe a secondary status to women, as scholar Richard Cavendish notes:

Orthodox Hindus believe that women cannot attain salvation as women, but only through being reborn as men. Women are evil and unclean, and the virtuous Hindu woman, who must treat her husband as if he was a god, is considered inferior to the worst of men.

Cavendish goes on to note that “the tirade in the Indian epic, the Mahabharata” is a “condemnation of woman” which says that women are “a curse. In her body the evil cycle of life begins afresh.” Male children are born “fouled with the impurities of woman. A wise man will avoid the contaminating society of women.”

In comparison, Cavendish says that the Judeo-Christian tradition within European culture is “by no means as hostile to women as orthodox Hinduism.” Western civilization is not “appalled by sex.”

British authorities began legislating to end suttee in the early 1800s. After India achieved political independence in the late 1940s, the Indian government continued to combat suttee, but instances of the practice have been recorded as late as 2008.