Prajakta Pawar, showing her wedding album. She cried while sharing the best memories of her life, and also said she was grateful to continue to wear these signs of a married woman and other ornaments that signify marriage. 
Pramod Zinjade (right), a social activist from Solapur, India, took the initiative to protect his own wife from repressive widow customs and urged village councils to ban the practice. Herwad became the first village to do so on May 1, 2022. 
Herwad village head Surgondha Patil (center) and social activist Pramod Zinjade (second from left) strategize with other council members in front of the village council office in Herwad, India. The village recently launched an incentives program for families that forgo widow customs. 
Shakira Jamadar, a young widow, works in a local garment factory to support her children and in-laws. Advocates of banning widow customs say it’s important that people put themselves in these women’s shoes as they grapple with this major life change. 
Sujata Rangrao Fakke, a young widow from Herwad, says no one came to her house to perform the widowhood rituals last year due to COVID-19 restrictions on social gatherings, so she removed the ornaments herself.
A snowballing ban on repressive widow rituals in India’s Maharashtra state shows how compassion can accelerate change.
Women’s rights activists say the tough-to-shake widowhood rituals are common throughout India – which is home to more than 40 million widows – and stem from patriarchal beliefs that a woman’s value is inherently tied to her husband. Upon his death, she may be subject to a variety of demeaning rituals and social ostracism, barred from wearing colourful clothing and attending religious or family functions. Some activists have called widowhood “a state of social death.”
A story by Kanika Gupta
Publisher: The Christian Science Monitor
Date: 29 Aug 2022
Link to story: Read More
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