1.Discussion (4 paragraphs)
2. Respond to 3 other discussions. (2 paragraphs)
“Her recently deceased husband lay on the funeral pyre waiting to be lit. Hundreds of people from the nearby villages stood watching and waiting for the widow to carry out her duty of chastity to its culmination. As the pyre was lit, the woman took several steps toward it and crawled on top of her husband’s corpse to embrace his neck. The pain was excruciating, but if she dismounted then she would shame her family and probably be lynched by a mob, anyway. So she lay there. The practice of burning a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre, known as suttee or sati, was commonplace in parts of India until the nineteenth century. To allow the dead man’s possessions and property to pass back into the hands of his family, his widow was expected to commit suicide and fulfill her duty of chastity by immolating herself on his funeral pyre. Several cases of widows being drowned or buried alive with their dead husbands have also been recorded. This practice lasted for 2,000 years until the British outlawed it in 1829 on the grounds that it was inhumane and immoral (see Sharma 1988, 6-7)”
Answer the questions asked below. Once you post your initial response you must respond to 3 classmates (around 2 paragraphs per response at minimum)
Is suttee morally acceptable simply because it was practiced and endorsed by a culture? Are the British officials who outlawed suttee morally praiseworthy for imposing an outside standard on the native inhabitants of India and disrupting their ability to fulfill sacred social expectations? Is there a right answer to the question of whether or not suttee is morally acceptable? Use the readings in chapter 1 to answer these questions, if you do any outside research you should include that. You should plan on 4 to 5 paragraphs to fully answer all the questions.