Widowhood: A Tool to Sustain Patriarchy and Exclusion of Women in India

Abstract

Widowhood is when a wife loses her husband due to his death. Though it is a pure accidental condition for women, widowhood contributes to women's exclusion in their families and society, and the plight and suffering of widows is a well-known fact, particularly in communities like India. Social exclusion is defined as a multidimensional rupturing of the social bonds between groups of people or individuals. It is a dynamic process through which social relations and institutions, both imagined and real, discriminate based on identities or belonging. According to Hilary Silver, social exclusion precludes full participation in the normatively prescribed activities of a given society, and it denies access to information, resources, sociability, recognition, and identity, eroding self-respect, and reduces capabilities to achieve personal goals. Social exclusion is multidimensional. It includes both economic and social aspects of disadvantage, e.g. exclusion from welfare policy of the state or family support and unemployment leading to poverty. It is also a structural process of social isolation. This paper attempts to relate the concept of social exclusion to the widows in India. It traces the historical roots to the present-day plight and exclusion of widows in India, mainly using personal narrations and some case studies. The paper argues that widows are one of those groups in the country that suffers from willful exclusion from society for cultural and economic reasons. India has various cultural beliefs and religions full of differences in norms and traditions. However, the scope of this paper is limited to the widows belonging to the Hindu religion.