THE TRIUMPH OF BRAHMANISM 297
wife and be a surplus man whom the group, while it may sympathise with him for the sad bereavement, has to dispose of, else he will marry outside the Caste and will break the endogamy. Thus both the surplus man and the surplus woman constitute a menace to the Caste if not taken care of, for, not Finding suitable partners inside their prescribed circle (and they cannot find any, for there are just enough pairs to go round) very likely they will transgress the boundary, marry outside and import population that is foreign to the Caste. Let us see what our imaginary group is likely to do with this surplus man and surplus woman. We will first take up the case of the surplus woman. She can be disposed of in two different ways so as to preserve the endogamy of the Caste.”
“First : burn her on the funeral pyre of her deceased husband and get rid of her. This, however, is rather an impracticable way of solving the problem of sex disparity. In some cases it may work, in others it may not. Consequently every surplus woman cannot thus be disposed of, because it is an easy solution but a hard realization. However, the surplus woman (widow) if not disposed of, remains in the group: but in her very existence lies a double danger. She may marry outside the Caste and violate to endogamy or she may marry within the Caste and through competition encroach upon the chances of marriage that must be reserved for the potential brides in the Caste. She therefore is a menace in any case and something must be done to her if she cannot be burned along with her deceased husband.”
“The second remedy is to enforce widowhood on her for the rest of her life. So far as the objective results are concerned burning is a better solution than enforcing widowhood. Burning the widow eliminates all the three evils that a surplus woman is fraught with. Being dead and gone she creates no problem of remarriage either inside or outside the Caste. But compulsory widowhood is superior to burning because it is more practicable. Besides being comparatively humane it also guards against the evils of remarriage as does burning; but it fails to guard the morals of the group. No doubt under compulsory widowhood the woman remains and, just because she is deprived of her natural right of being a legitimate wife in future, the incentive to bad moral conduct is increased. But this is by no means an insuperable’ difficulty. She can be degraded to a condition where she could no longer be a source of allurement.”
“The problem of surplus man (—widower) is much more important and much more difficult than that of the surplus woman in a group that desires to make itself into a Caste. From time immemorial man as compared with woman has had the upper hand. He is a dominant