Wife killed herself after husband death in ancient india
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ati or suttee[note 1] is an obsolete funeral custom where a widow immolates herself (Anumarana) on her husband's pyre or takes her own life in another fashion shortly after her husband's death.[2][3][4][5]
Mention of the practice can be dated back to the 3rd century BCE,[6] while definite inscriptional proof in Nepal and India starts appearing from 5th and 6th centuries CE respectively. Sati stones started appearing in large numbers from 11th century. From 12th to 19th century and also in the late modern era, there were incidents when it often occurred in large numbers, especially as a reaction to military conquests by foreign militaries. The number of women burning themselves however always remained low in relation to the number of people. Resolute support for Sati by some authors only appears from 15th century, however there were also many in opposition to it. The practice was particularly prevalent among some Hindu communities,[7] observed in aristocratic Sikh families,[8] and has been attested to outside the Indian subcontinent in a number of localities in Southeast Asia, such as in Indonesia and Vietnam.[9] The practice was never widespread throughout India, nor did it have scriptural sanction.[10]
The British East India Company initially tolerated the practice, with William Carey noting 438 incidences within a 30-mile (48-km) radius of Calcutta, in 1803, despite its ban within Calcutta itself.[11] Historian A.F. Salahuddin Ahmed states Company employees "not only seemed to accord an official sanction, but also increased its prestige value", in Bengal, through only prohibiting involuntary immolations in 1813.[12] Between 1815 and 1818, the number of sati in Bengal province doubled from 378 to 839. Under sustained campaigning against sati by Christian missionaries such as William Carey and Brahmin Hindu reformers such as Ram Mohan Roy, the provincial government banned sati in 1829.[13][14][15] This was followed up by similar laws by the authorities in the princely states of India in the ensuing decades, with a general ban for the whole of India issued by Queen Victoria in 1861. In Nepal, sati was banned in 1920. The Indian Sati Prevention Act from 1988 further criminalised any type of aiding, abetting, and glorifying of sati.