The arguments about SATI PRATHA and WIDOW REMARRIAGE was taking place more than 175 years ago. Write down the different arguments you may have heard around you on the worth of women. In what ways the views have changed?
Answers
Explanation:
Sati or suttee[note 1] is a largely historical practice found chiefly among Hindus in the northern and pre-modern regions of South Asia, in which a widow sacrifices herself by sitting atop her deceased husband's funeral pyre.[2][3][4][5]
The extent to which sati was practised in history is not known with clarity. However, during the early modern Mughal period, it was notably associated with elite Hindu Rajput clans in western India, marking one of the points of divergence between Rajput culture and Islamic Mughal culture, which allowed widow remarriage.[6] In the early 19th century, the British East India Company, in the process of extending its rule to most of India, initially tolerated the practice; William Carey, a Christian evangelist, noted 438 incidences within a 30-mile (48-km) radius of the capital Calcutta, in 1803, despite its ban within Calcutta.[7] Between 1815 and 1818, the number of incidents of sati in Bengal doubled from 378 to 839. Opposition to the practice of sati by Christian evangelists, such as Carey, and Hindu reformers such as Ram Mohan Roy, ultimately led the Governor-General of India Lord William Bentinck to enact the Bengal Sati Regulation, 1829, declaring the practise of burning or burying alive of Hindu widows to be punishable by the criminal courts.[8][9][10] These were followed up with other legislation, countering what the British perceived to be interrelated issues involving violence against Hindu women, including: Hindu Widows' Remarriage Act, 1856, Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870, and Age of Consent Act, 1891.
Isolated incidents of sati were recorded in India in the late 20th century, leading the Indian government to promulgate the Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987, criminalising the aiding or glorifying of sati.