The plight of Widows
India is the country with the largest widow population in the world. It is estimated there are 40 million widows in India today – 10 per cent of the country’s female population. It has become home to the “husbandless”.
On news of their husband’s death, the wives break their bangles as they can no longer wear jewellery or use sindhoor – the red powder women wear in their parting and on their foreheads to denote their married status. Many widows are thrown out of family homes by their children or abandoned by their in-laws. Unfortunately, without a man by her side a woman has no respect in rural Indian society. It is part of a patriarchal culture where a woman is respected only if she is a mother, daughter and wife.