"I am a widow, Sahib, as the iron bracelet testifies with cold
bitterness; it is the badge of one who is outcast, of one who has not
become _sati_, has not sat on the wood to find death in its devouring
flame."
Barlow knew all the false logic, the metaphysical Machiavellians, the
Brahmins, advanced to thin out the undesirable females,--women considered
at all times in that land of overpopulation of less value than men,--by
the simple expedient of self-destruction. He knew the Brahmins' thesis
culled from their Word of God, the Vedas or the Puranas, calculated to
make the widow a voluntary, willing suicide. They would tell Bootea that
owing to having been evil in former incarnations her sins had been
visited upon her husband, had caused his death; that in a former life she
had been a snake, or a rat.
The dead husband's mother, had Bootea come of an age to live with him,
though yet but a child of twelve years, would, on the slightest
provocation, beat her--even brand her with a hot iron; he had known of it
having been done. She would be given but one meal a day--rice and
chillies.
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