"
A disquisition also takes place--_whether India or Egypt were the
parent of the Arts?_
This leads them to refer to the strange custom in the country of the
Brahmin, which impels the widow to throw herself on the funeral pile,
and be consumed with her husband:--
"I told him," says Atterley, "that it had often been represented as
compulsory--or, in other words, that it was said that every art and
means were resorted to, for the purpose of working on the mind of the
woman, by her relatives, aided by the priests, who would be naturally
gratified by such signal triumphs of religion over the strongest
feelings of nature. He admitted that these engines were sometimes put
in operation, and that they impelled to the sacrifice, some who were
wavering; but insisted, that in a majority of instances, the
_Suttee_ was voluntary.
"'Women,' said he, 'are brought up from their infancy, to regard our
sex as their superiors, and to believe that their greatest merit
consists in entire devotion to their husbands. Under this feeling, and
having, at the same time, their attention frequently turned to the
chance of such a calamity, they are better prepared to meet it when it
occurs. How few of the officers in your western armies, ever hesitate
to march, at the head of their men, on a forlorn hope? and how many
even court the danger for the sake of the glory? Nay, you tell me
that, according to your code of honour, if one man insults another, he
who gives the provocation, and he who receives it, rather than be
disgraced in the eyes of their countrymen, will go out, and quietly
shoot at each other with fire-arms, till one of them is killed or
wounded; and this too, in many cases, when the injury has been merely
nominal.
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