Edward John Thompson - Suttee: A Historical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Hindu Rite of Widow-Burning. The Veranda

This last proof of the perfect unity of body and soul, this devotion beyond the grave, has been chosen by many of our Western critics as our reproach; we differ from them in thinking of our suttees not with pity, but with understanding, respect, and love. So far from being ashamed of our suttees, we take a pride in them; that is even true of the most progressive amongst us. It is very much like the tenderness which our childrens children may some day feel for those of their race who were willing to throw away their lives for their country, right or wrong, though the point of view may seem to us then, as it seems to so many of us already, evidence rather of generosity than balanced judgment... For some reason it has come to be believed that Sati must have been a man-made institution imposed on women by men for reasons of their own, that it is associated with feminine servility, and that it is peculiar to India. We shall see that these views are historically unsound. It is true that in aristocratic circles Sati became to some degree a social convention, and pressure was put on unwilling individuals, precisely as conscripts are even now forced to suffer or die for other peoples ideas; and from this point of view we cannot but be glad that it was prohibited by law in 1829 on the initiative of Raja Rammohun Roy. But now that nearly a century has passed, it should not be difficult to review the history and significance of Sati more dispassionately than was possible in the hour of controversy and the atmosphere of religious prejudice. Ananda Coomaraswamy, The Dance of Siva, published 1924, 91-2.

The devotion of Alcestis! Assuredly the heroic unselfishness of woman is a beautiful thing; and I warrant you that, the gods helping me, Alcestis shall take no injury from my hands. But what of Admetus as a husband? That is an aspect of the matter upon which our hymnists and our congregations are little disposed to dwell, and they find no difficulty in ignoring it. It belongs to the skimble-skamble thinking which aids and is aided by faith in these monstrosities never to see anything steadily, never to see anything whole, but only such parts as please. And your heroic tragedy is beloved for flattering this habit. But there are flatterers enough; and, for my part, I intend to give you much more of Admetus than of Alcestis. He is much better for you. You are accustomed to rest with complacency on the picture of the self-sacrificing woman as the ideal of wives. For herself she deserves such admiration, but for men and for society, no! I should like to make you feel, and I mean to try, what a blind, barbarous, self-defeating selfishness is at the bottom of all this rapture about the devotion of woman. You will say that the women join in it. But what sort of women? What are the women bred by our system of semi-humanity but the most dangerous of our slaves? Prohibited by your generosity from acquiring intelligence except at the cost of respect, the poor creatures are so dull that they cannot even distinguish a friend from an enemy. Your magnanimous satirists have no difficulty in directing the almost unanimous resentment of the sex against whoever dares to see and show what mischief to themselves and to us results from their ill-governed virtue not less than from their ungoverned vice. I pity Alcestis, and I pity her husband. What would she make of him? What does she make of him? A. W. Verrall, Euripides the Rationalist, 118-19 (Euripides is supposed to be speaking).

It is a strange commentary on the magnanimity of men that they should seek their deliverance through the self-sacrifice of their wives. Akbar, quoted by Abul Fazl in Happy Sayings of His Majesty (Ain-i-Akbari, Institutes of Akbar), Jarret, iii. 398.