CHAPTER r II
Eastern Bengal, which was the principal seat of Brahminism at that time, had divided all the Brahmins of the province into certain orders of social prestige, according to their merits and attainments, calling the highest of them Kulins. The system of Kulinism gave rise in course of time to extensive polygamy. In as much as the privileges of these orders were made hereditary and as an alliance with a Kulin was looked upon as a means of obtaining social honour for a family, such an alliance was naturally sought after by the fathers of all marriageable girls. Thus the custom came to be generally adopted of a Kulin man marrying a number of wives. Under this horrid custom there were in Bengal, at the time under review, thousands of young women who were living a life of practical widowhood, nominally wedded to husbands who owned in many cases scores of other wives. But far more miserable was the lot of the Hindu widows of the higher castes, many of whom were burnt alive, sometimes by their own choice, but oftener by compulsion, on the funeral pyres of their husbands. And those of them who shrank back from self-immolation were doomed to perpetual widowhood and were subjected to such austerities as made their lives a burden to them. Indeed, the death of a husband brought a sudden change in the life of
