Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Widow suicide, also known as sati, was extremely popular in India up until the 18th century. The most common form of sati was burning to death on your husband's funeral pyre, although other methods did exist, including being buried alive with his corpse, and drowning.

The appeal behind committing sati came from the fact that being a widow sucked. Having your husband die before you meant that you were a "failed wife," earning the scorn of his family. The only way to redeem yourself was to show your devotion by following him into the next life. This, of course, had nothing to do with the fact that, upon the widow's death, all her wealth (i.e. her husband's) would return back to the husband's family. Nothing at all, they're legitimately angry you let him die of old age. How rude.

Chancy R. Barns

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

For over two millennia, sati was a perfectly legal thing to do. The only way the government offered to protect widows was to give them the human right of calling backsies. No one could force a widow to commit funeral suicide. Not for a lack of trying, though:

"As the wind drove the fierce fire upon her, she shook her arms and limbs as if in agony; at length she started up and approached the side to escape. An Hindu, one of the police who had been placed near the pile to see she had fair play, and should not be burned by force, raised his sword to strike her, and the poor wretch shrank back into the flames. The magistrate seized and committed him to prison. The woman again approached the side of the blazing pile, sprang fairly out, and ran into the Ganges, which was within a few yards. When the crowd and the brothers of the dead man saw this, they called out, 'Cut her down, knock her on the head with a bamboo; tie her hands and feet, and throw her in again' and rushed down to execute their murderous intentions, when the gentlemen and the police drove them back."