to misfortune
and innocent misery. If a widow has value for any purpose, she falls to
the heir and he may exploit her. On the Fiji Islands a wife was
strangled on her husband's grave and buried with him. A god lies in wait
on the road to the other world who is implacable to the unmarried.
Therefore a man's ghost must be attended by a woman's ghost to pass in
safety.[1287] Mongol widows could find no second husbands, because they
would have to serve their first husbands in the next world. The youngest
son inherited the household and was bound to provide for his father's
widows. He could take to wife any of them except his own mother, and he
did so because he was willing that they should go to his father in the
next world.[1288] In the laws of Hammurabi the widow was secured a share
in her husband's property and was protected against the selfishness of
her sons. If she gave up to her sons what she had received from her
husband, she could keep what her father gave her and could marry again.
In later Chaldea annuities were provided for widows by payments to
temples.[1289] In the Mahabharata the morning salutation to a woman is,
"May you not undergo the lot of a widow."[1290]

+407. Burning of widows.+ It appears certain that the primitive Aryans
practiced the burning of widows, perhaps by the choice of the widows,
and that the custom declined in the Vedic period of India. The burning
of widows and the levirate could not exist together.[1291] As Manu[1292]
gives rules for the behavior of widows (not name any man but the
deceased husband; not remarry), he assumes that they will live. The
custom of suttee was strongest in the lower castes.[1293] Akbar, the
Mogul emperor, forbade suttee about 1600.[1294] He acted from the
Mohammedan standpoint. His ordinance had no effect on the usage. The
English put an end to the custom in 1830. This did not affect the native
states, where the latest instance reported took place in 1880.[1295] A
man who knows India well says that it was no kindness to widows to put a
stop to suttee because, if they live on, their existence is so wretched
that death would be better. Wilkins[1296] quotes a Hindoo widow's
description of the treatment she received, which included physical abuse
and moral torture. She was addressed as if she was to blame for the
death of her husband. The head of a widow is shaved, although Hindoo
women care very much for their hair. She is allowed but one meal a day
and must fast