"Are There Really Widows Anymore?": What Widowhood Looks Like in a Hindu Canadian Diaspora Community
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"Are There Really Widows Anymore?": What Widowhood Looks Like in a Hindu Canadian Diaspora Community By © Caitlin Russell A Thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Religious Studies Memorial University of Newfoundland March 2021 Abstract Extant scholarship that has been largely focused on sati and lived experience in the Indian context presents widowhood for Hindu women as a largely negative state distinct from that of wife. Using data from a series of semi-structured interviews with 14 women in St. John’s, Newfoundland, this thesis describes and analyzes these women’s perceptions and experiences of widowhood in the Hindu Canadian diaspora. It asserts that while a widowed woman must negotiate the roles, rules, and attributes of "widow," in these contexts they are not fixed or permanent. This thesis examines closely four different components present in Hindu Canadian understandings of widowhood: 1) modifications in diet and clothing that signify the shift from wife to widow; 2) ostracism of widows from the religious and social life of the Hindu community; 3) the positions and relationships of widows in the community, in their family, and; 4) the definitions, classifications and categorization of widows and widowhood among both widowed and non-widowed women. Through each of these frames, the thesis documents how the Canadian Hindu widow both claims and is attributed respect, status, and independence and that the identity, relationships, and practices of widows, though part of continuous process of change, are not set apart from those of wives in any absolute manner. ii Acknowledgments I owe innumerable thanks to Dr. Patricia Dold, my supervisor, whose care, kindness, and brilliance made the completion of this project possible. Thank you for all your support and for such exceeding generosity in providing your counsel. I cannot adequately express my gratitude. I would like to thank the faculty and staff of the Department of Religious Studies at Memorial University for their wisdom, guidance, and assistance. Particular thanks to Dr. Jennifer Selby for her direction and advice on conducting fieldwork in the city of St. John’s. I would additionally like to thank Dr. Selby, as well as Dr. Brenda Anderson, for taking the time to review this thesis as examiners, providing helpful feedback and encouraging comments. Thanks to my parents, Marilynn and Tony, my brother, Kyle, and my partner, Gregory, for the constant encouragement and understanding. Thanks to Dr. Mandy Rowsell, Dr. Marsha Rowsell, Dr. Brittany Reid, and Sarah King for providing assistance and reassurance. Thank you to the St. John’s Hindu community for welcoming me into their place of worship, their celebrations, and their homes. Finally, this thesis would not have been possible without the giving, kind-hearted, wonderful women who took the time to meet with me. I cannot thank you enough for your time, your patience, your stories and your thoughts. iii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgments iii Chapter One: Introduction 1 1.1 Literature Review 3 1.2 Need for this Study 29 1.3 Methodology 35 Chapter Two: "I will come the day you change your sari" Clothing and Diet Restrictions for Widows 48 2.1 Restrictions in Hindu Texts 49 2.2 Attire Choices, Changes, and Restrictions 51 2.3 Diet Choices, Changes, and Restrictions 58 Chapter Three: "Why I should be changed by the talk of people?" Exclusion, Participation and Social Relationships of Widows in the Hindu Community 67 3.1 Inauspiciousness and Participation in the Auspicious 69 3.2 Social Relationships 82 3.2.1 Social Invitations and Friendships 83 3.2.2 Widow Blaming 86 3.2.3 Slander’s Influence 90 3.2.4 Sexuality and Remarriage 94 iv Chapter Four: "Taking care" Familial Relationships of Widows 109 Chapter Five: "An Invisible Thing" The Definitions, Classifications and Categorization of Widows and Widowhood 133 5.1 An Identity Shaping Widowhood 133 5.2 Widowhood Shaping Identity 142 5.3 Identifying and Defining Widowhood 149 5.4 Defining a Widow by Position and Defining a Widow’s Position 151 Conclusion 156 Bibliography 164 Appendix A - ICEHR Approval Letter 171 Appendix B - ICEHR Amendment Approval Letter 172 Appendix C - Index of Participant Information 173 v Chapter One- Introduction "Are there really widows anymore?" When looking at the current research that exists on Hindu traditions, it would appear very clear that, yes, there are such things as "widows." Widowhood in Hindu traditions has been a topic of interest in the last few decades, both in popular media and academia. In 1987 the self-immolation of a young widow in the town of Rajput gathered international media attention.1 In 2007, the film Water (2005), directed by Deepa Mehta, an Indo-Canadian filmmaker, was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, making it the first Canadian non-French film to be nominated in that category.2 The subject of the film Water was the plight of widows in India in the year 1 Catherine Weinberger-Thomas, Ashes of Immortality: Widow-Burning in India (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 89. 2 Uma Mahadevan, "Readings, Misreadings and Fundamentalist Readings: Reflections on the Making of Deepa Mehta's Water," in Films, Literature & Culture: Deepa Mehta's Elements Trilogy, ed. Jasbir Jain (Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2007), 168-169. 1 1938. As a Canadian film nominated for an Academy Award, it garnered new attention to the concept of widowhood within a Hindu religious context. These are arguably the two most visible presentations of Hindu widowhood within Canadian media to date. Meanwhile, with growing interest in women in religious traditions over the past 50 years or so, there is often a tendency within academic writing to focus on the obscure or the negative aspects of a religious tradition’s practices. The combination of such scholarship and media representations generates largely negative, homogenized depictions of Hindu widowhood within scholarship on Hinduism. Extant scholarship on widows within Hindu religious tradition demonstrates an overwhelming focus on sati, the concept of widow-burning, but also an emphasis on the socio-economic and geographic contexts of Hindu widows. Very little research has been completed on the actual life experiences of widows, compared to historical, traditional, and scriptural examinations, and there is a striking absence of research to date that attends to the experiences of widows within a diaspora setting. In this thesis, I examine the lives, practices, and experiences of Hindu widows, as well as the understandings of Hindu widowhood, in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. Following the completion of 14 semi-structured interviews with women in the St. John’s Hindu community, this analysis aims to examine the perceptions and experiences of widowhood in the Hindu Canadian diaspora. I assert, based on the data from these interviews, that while a widowed woman must negotiate the roles, rules, and attributes of "widow," in the Hindu Canadian context these are not fixed or permanent. Martha Alter Chen states that her primary purpose in her thorough investigation of widowhood in rural 2 India was "to widen the understanding of widowhood in India: both the cultural representation of widowhood as well as the everyday reality of widows’ lives," 3 and I echo this objective. In the hope of looking past stereotypes that focus solely on the negative aspects and uniform presentations of deprivation in widowhood within Hindu traditions, and instead studying the practices, social and familial relationships, experiences, and beliefs of and about Hindu widows in the under investigated non-Indian setting, I seek to widen the understanding of widowhood in Hindu traditions. 1.1 Literature Review The state of scholarship on the topic of widowhood in Hindu traditions is important to examine in order to identify the value of researching understandings and experiences of Hindu widowhood in Newfoundland, and also to show what extant scholarship does and does not establish: what does it overlook and what conclusions does it make. The historical and textual approaches to Hindu widowhood, the social status of widowed women, their living conditions, their relationship with those around them, their practices, and their roles as described within existing scholarship will be examined so as to provide insight into what questions need to be asked about the diaspora context. Extant scholarship on Hindu widows largely focuses on one of two areas: 1) traditional conceptualizations of widowhood and 2) modern widows, usually examined in 3 Martha Alter Chen, Perpetual Mourning: Widowhood in Rural India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), 7. 3 the form of case studies about widowhood in Hindu traditions. While the majority of these works indicate a negative social status for widows, there are also suggestions of agency among widows. Research on widowhood generally also reveals similarities regarding the state of widowhood cross-culturally and works looking at diasporic life show the uniqueness of the Hindu communities outside of the South Asian geographical context. What becomes clear by investigating current academic works is that the lives of Hindus outside South Asia, and of widows across the globe, are both strongly influenced by cultural context, as well as by a woman’s own individual traits as a widow. It is additionally evident that there are therefore significant gaps in research