Widow Remarriage and Mahatma Gandhi

[Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav]

Prof. Dr. Yogendra Yadav

Senior Gandhian Scholar

Gandhi Research Foundation, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

Contact No. – 09404955338, 09415777229

E-mail- [e-mail];

[e-mail]

Mailing Address- C- 29, Swaraj Nagar, Panki, Kanpur- 208020, Uttar Pradesh, India

 

 

Widow Remarriage and Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

When a child-widow is totally ignorant of any dharma, how can we expect her to understand the dharma of a widow? Living a life of dharma implies an understanding of what dharma means. Can we say that a child who simply does not understand the distinction between right and wrong is guilty of a falsehood? A child-widow of nine years does not understand the meaning of marriage, nor of widowhood. She is, as far as she is concerned, unmarried. How, then, can we say that she has become a widow? She was married by her parents, and it is they who think that she has become a widow? If, therefore, the widow’s life earns merit for anyone, it does so for the parents. But can they really earn such merit at the sacrifice of a nine year old girl? Even if they can, the problem of the girl’s future is still with us. Let us suppose that she has grown into a young woman of twenty years. As she gradually came to understand things, she realized from the attitude of the people round her that she was regarded as a widow.

But let us suppose she has not understood a widow’s dharma, and also that, by the time she was twenty, the natural impulses had grown in her and become strong. What should she do now? She cannot say anything to her parents, for they have already decided that their daughter a young woman now was a widow and that marriage was out of the question for her. This is only an imaginary instance. But there are many Hindu widows in the country, thousands of them, whom this description will fit. As we have seen, they earn merit for none by living as widows. Whom shall we hold responsible for the many sins into which these young women fall in yielding to desire? According to me, their parents certainly share in their sin; but the evil is a blot on Hinduism too, the latter loses its vitality day by day, and immorality flourishes in the name of dharma. That is why, though I once held the same views as this sister. The correspondent had said that she could not understand why Gandhiji advocated freedom for child-widows to remarry, since the life of self-denial which tradition required them to live helped to conquer passion and was, therefore, spiritually uplifting. experience, that a child-widow who, on growing up to womanhood, may wish to marry, should have complete freedom, and be encouraged to do so; not only that, her parents should make every effort to get her suitably married. As things are, vices flourish in the name of virtue. Even if, as suggested here, child-widows are remarried, pure widowhood will continue to adorn Hinduism. If a woman who has known conjugal love, on becoming a widow, deliberately refuses to marry again, her self-control will not have been imposed on her from outside. There is no power on earth which can tempt her to marry. Her freedom is forever safe. It is immoral to assume a spiritual union where there has been none. Such a union simply cannot exist between a child-husband and a child-wife. Savitri entered into a spiritual union, so did Sita and Damayanti.

We cannot even imagine such women, should they become widows, ever marrying again. Ramibai Ranade lived such a pure life in her widowhood. Today, Vasantidevi lives in this manner. Their virtuous life as widows ennobles the Hindu way of life, sanctifies it. Through the supposed widowhood of girls who are only children, Hindu society sinks lower day by day. Women who became widows after they had grown up into womanhood should, while they continue to live worthily as widows, come forward to help child-widows to remarry and to spread the reform among the Hindus. Other women who share the views of this correspondent should see their error in supposing that dharma can be preserved by perpetuating the misfortune of child-widows. I have been led to this conclusion, not by my sympathy for sufferings of child-widows, but by profounder considerations about dharma which guide my heart in this matter; and I have tried to explain them here.

 

Reference:

 

 Navajivan, 21-2-1926