{
  "book_metadata": {
    "book_name": "History of Christianity in India: Source Materials",
    "book_author": "M. K. Kuriakose",
    "publisher": "Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge",
    "published_on": "2011"
  },
  "chunks": [
    {
      "chunk_index": 1,
      "chapter_name": "1820. Rammohun Roy on Sati and the Defense of Women",
      "page_numbers": [
        95
      ],
      "image_paths": [
        "raw\\pages\\00119-aa9023f8e5f6970a73c4.webp"
      ],
      "chunk_title": "Rammohun Roy on Sati",
      "chunk_data": "Raja Rammohun Roy, the Bengali reformer who worked closely with William Carey in the effort to have sati made illegal, here describes the arguments advanced by both sides in meetings held on the subject in 1818 and 1820. The opponent of sati reflects the views of Rammohun Roy. It will be noted that the argument centres around the question of whether women are worthy to outlive their husbands. The complete document is found in The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy, pp. 359-360.",
      "time": {
        "start_year": 1820,
        "start_month": null,
        "start_date": null,
        "end_year": 1820,
        "end_month": null,
        "end_date": null,
        "time_display": "1820 AD"
      },
      "meta": {
        "people": [
          "Rammohun Roy",
          "William Carey"
        ],
        "places": [
          "Bengal"
        ],
        "event": "Raja Rammohun Roy presents arguments concerning the abolition of sati and the status of widows.",
        "tags": [
          "Religion",
          "Social Reform",
          "Women"
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "chunk_index": 2,
      "chapter_name": "1820. Rammohun Roy on Sati and the Defense of Women",
      "page_numbers": [
        95,
        96
      ],
      "image_paths": [
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      ],
      "chunk_title": "The Advocate Defends Sati",
      "chunk_data": "Section IX\n\nAdvocate. I alluded, in page 18, line 18, to the real reason for our anxiety to persuade widows to follow their husbands, and for our endeavours to burn them pressed down with ropes; viz., that women are by nature of inferior understanding, without resolution, unworthy of trust, subject to passions, and void of virtuous knowledge; they, according to the precepts of the sastra, are not allowed to marry again after the demise of their husbands, and consequently despair at once of all worldly pleasures; hence it is evident, that death to these unfortunate widows is preferable to existence; for the great difficulty which a widow may experience by living a purely ascetic life, as prescribed by the Sastras, is obvious; therefore, if she do not perform concremation, it is probable that she may be guilty of such acts as may bring disgrace upon her paternal and maternal relations and those that may be connected with her husband. Under these circumstances, we instruct them from their early life in the idea of concremation, holding out to them heavenly enjoyments in company with their husbands, as well as the beatitude of their relations, both by birth and marriage, and their reputation in this world. From this many of them, on the death of their husbands, become desirous of accompanying them; but to remove every chance of their trying to escape from the blazing fire, in burning them we first tie them down to the pile.",
      "time": {
        "start_year": 1818,
        "start_month": null,
        "start_date": null,
        "end_year": 1820,
        "end_month": null,
        "end_date": null,
        "time_display": "1818–1820 AD"
      },
      "meta": {
        "people": [
          "Rammohun Roy"
        ],
        "places": [
          "Bengal"
        ],
        "event": "The Advocate argues that widows should be burned because women are allegedly weak, untrustworthy, passionate, and unable to live ascetic lives.",
        "tags": [
          "Sati",
          "Religion",
          "Women"
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "chunk_index": 3,
      "chapter_name": "1820. Rammohun Roy on Sati and the Defense of Women",
      "page_numbers": [
        96
      ],
      "image_paths": [
        "raw\\pages\\00120-f14fe7cdbf890d0ffc67.webp"
      ],
      "chunk_title": "The Opponent Rejects the Argument",
      "chunk_data": "Opponent. The reason you have now assigned for burning widows alive is indeed your true motive, as we are well aware; but the faults which you have imputed to women are not planted in their constitution by nature; it would be, therefore, grossly criminal to condemn that sex to death merely from precaution. By ascribing to them all sorts of improper conduct, you have indeed successfully persuaded the Hindu community to look down upon them as contemptible and mischievous creatures, whence they have been subjected to constant miseries. I have, therefore, to offer a few remarks on this head.",
      "time": {
        "start_year": 1820,
        "start_month": null,
        "start_date": null,
        "end_year": 1820,
        "end_month": null,
        "end_date": null,
        "time_display": "1820 AD"
      },
      "meta": {
        "people": [
          "Rammohun Roy"
        ],
        "places": [
          "Bengal"
        ],
        "event": "Rammohun Roy rejects the claim that women are naturally defective and argues that condemning them to death is criminal.",
        "tags": [
          "Sati",
          "Social Reform",
          "Women"
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "chunk_index": 4,
      "chapter_name": "1820. Rammohun Roy on Sati and the Defense of Women",
      "page_numbers": [
        96
      ],
      "image_paths": [
        "raw\\pages\\00120-f14fe7cdbf890d0ffc67.webp"
      ],
      "chunk_title": "Women’s Physical Inferiority",
      "chunk_data": "Women are in general inferior to men in bodily strength and energy; consequently the male part of the community, taking advantage of their corporeal weakness, have denied to them those excellent merits that they are entitled to by nature, and afterwards they are apt to say that women are naturally incapable of acquiring those merits. But if we give the subject consideration, we may easily ascertain whether or not your accusation against them is consistent with justice.",
      "time": {
        "start_year": 1820,
        "start_month": null,
        "start_date": null,
        "end_year": 1820,
        "end_month": null,
        "end_date": null,
        "time_display": "1820 AD"
      },
      "meta": {
        "people": [
          "Rammohun Roy"
        ],
        "places": [
          "Bengal"
        ],
        "event": "Rammohun Roy argues that men exploit women’s physical weakness and then falsely claim that women cannot possess or acquire virtue.",
        "tags": [
          "Women",
          "Social Reform",
          "Gender"
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "chunk_index": 5,
      "chapter_name": "1820. Rammohun Roy on Sati and the Defense of Women",
      "page_numbers": [
        96
      ],
      "image_paths": [
        "raw\\pages\\00120-f14fe7cdbf890d0ffc67.webp"
      ],
      "chunk_title": "Women Denied Education",
      "chunk_data": "As to their inferiority in point of understanding, when did you ever afford them a fair opportunity of exhibiting their natural capacity? How then can you accuse them of want of understanding? If, after instruction in knowledge and wisdom, a person cannot comprehend or retain what has been taught to him, we may consider him as deficient; but as you keep women generally void of education and acquirements, you cannot, therefore, in justice pronounce on their inferiority...",
      "time": {
        "start_year": 1820,
        "start_month": null,
        "start_date": null,
        "end_year": 1820,
        "end_month": null,
        "end_date": null,
        "time_display": "1820 AD"
      },
      "meta": {
        "people": [
          "Rammohun Roy"
        ],
        "places": [
          "Bengal"
        ],
        "event": "Rammohun Roy argues that women cannot justly be judged intellectually inferior because they are denied education and opportunity.",
        "tags": [
          "Education",
          "Women",
          "Social Reform"
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "chunk_index": 6,
      "chapter_name": "1820. Rammohun Roy on Sati and the Defense of Women",
      "page_numbers": [
        96,
        97
      ],
      "image_paths": [
        "raw\\pages\\00120-f14fe7cdbf890d0ffc67.webp",
        "raw\\pages\\00121-3800ef9f5b765bb478e2.webp"
      ],
      "chunk_title": "Women’s Firmness and Resolution",
      "chunk_data": "Secondly, you charge them with want of resolution, at which I feel exceedingly surprised for we constantly perceive, in a country where the name of death makes the male shudder, that the female, from her firmness of mind, offers to burn with the corpse of her deceased husband; and yet you accuse those women of deficiency in point of resolution.",
      "time": {
        "start_year": 1820,
        "start_month": null,
        "start_date": null,
        "end_year": 1820,
        "end_month": null,
        "end_date": null,
        "time_display": "1820 AD"
      },
      "meta": {
        "people": [
          "Rammohun Roy"
        ],
        "places": [
          "Bengal"
        ],
        "event": "Rammohun Roy points to women’s willingness to die with their husbands as evidence of their firmness and resolution.",
        "tags": [
          "Sati",
          "Women",
          "Social Reform"
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "chunk_index": 7,
      "chapter_name": "1820. Rammohun Roy on Sati and the Defense of Women",
      "page_numbers": [
        97
      ],
      "image_paths": [
        "raw\\pages\\00121-3800ef9f5b765bb478e2.webp"
      ],
      "chunk_title": "Women and Trustworthiness",
      "chunk_data": "Thirdly, with regard to their trustworthiness, let us look minutely into the conduct of both sexes, and we may be enabled to ascertain which of them is the most frequently guilty of betraying friends. If we enumerate such women in each village or town as have been deceived by men, and such men as have been betrayed by women, I presume that the number of the deceived women would be found ten times greater than that of the betrayed men. Men are, in general, able to read and write, and manage public affairs by which means they easily promulgate such faults as women occasionally commit, but never consider as criminal the misconduct of men towards women...",
      "time": {
        "start_year": 1820,
        "start_month": null,
        "start_date": null,
        "end_year": 1820,
        "end_month": null,
        "end_date": null,
        "time_display": "1820 AD"
      },
      "meta": {
        "people": [
          "Rammohun Roy"
        ],
        "places": [
          "Bengal"
        ],
        "event": "Rammohun Roy argues that women are more often deceived by men than men are betrayed by women, while male literacy conceals men’s misconduct.",
        "tags": [
          "Women",
          "Gender",
          "Social Reform"
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "chunk_index": 8,
      "chapter_name": "1820. Rammohun Roy on Sati and the Defense of Women",
      "page_numbers": [
        97
      ],
      "image_paths": [
        "raw\\pages\\00121-3800ef9f5b765bb478e2.webp"
      ],
      "chunk_title": "Marriage and the Passions",
      "chunk_data": "In the fourth place, with respect to their subjection to the passions, this may be judged of by the custom of marriage as to the respective sexes; for one man may marry two or three, sometimes even ten wives and upwards; while a woman, who marries but one husband, desires at his death to follow him, forsaking all worldly enjoyments, or to remain leading the austere life of an ascetic.",
      "time": {
        "start_year": 1820,
        "start_month": null,
        "start_date": null,
        "end_year": 1820,
        "end_month": null,
        "end_date": null,
        "time_display": "1820 AD"
      },
      "meta": {
        "people": [
          "Rammohun Roy"
        ],
        "places": [
          "Bengal"
        ],
        "event": "Rammohun Roy contrasts men’s polygamy with women’s devotion to a single husband and their willingness to live as widows or ascetics.",
        "tags": [
          "Marriage",
          "Women",
          "Social Reform"
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "chunk_index": 9,
      "chapter_name": "1820. Rammohun Roy on Sati and the Defense of Women",
      "page_numbers": [
        97
      ],
      "image_paths": [
        "raw\\pages\\00121-3800ef9f5b765bb478e2.webp"
      ],
      "chunk_title": "Women’s Virtuous Knowledge",
      "chunk_data": "Fifthly, the accusation of their want of virtuous knowledge is an injustice. Observe what pain, what slighting, what contempt, and what afflictions their virtue enables them to support! How many Kulin Brahmins are there who marry ten or fifteen wives for the sake of money, that never see the greater number of them after the day of marriage, and visit others only three or four times in the course of their life. Still amongst those women, most, even without seeing or receiving any support from their husbands, living dependent on their fathers or brothers, and suffering much distress, continue to preserve their virtue; and when Brahmins, or those of other tribes, bring their wives to live with them, what misery do the women most suffer?",
      "time": {
        "start_year": 1820,
        "start_month": null,
        "start_date": null,
        "end_year": 1820,
        "end_month": null,
        "end_date": null,
        "time_display": "1820 AD"
      },
      "meta": {
        "people": [
          "Rammohun Roy",
          "Kulin Brahmins"
        ],
        "places": [
          "Bengal"
        ],
        "event": "Rammohun Roy defends women’s virtue by describing the suffering and neglect endured by wives of polygamous Kulin Brahmins.",
        "tags": [
          "Women",
          "Marriage",
          "Social Reform"
        ]
      }
    },
    {
      "chunk_index": 10,
      "chapter_name": "1820. Rammohun Roy on Sati and the Defense of Women",
      "page_numbers": [
        97
      ],
      "image_paths": [
        "raw\\pages\\00121-3800ef9f5b765bb478e2.webp"
      ],
      "chunk_title": "Women’s Domestic Suffering",
      "chunk_data": "At marriage the wife is recognised as half of her husband, but in after-conduct they are treated worse than inferior animals. For the woman is employed to the work of a slave in the house, such as, in her turn, to clean the place very early in the morning, whether cold or wet, to scour the dishes, to wash the floor, to cook night and day, to prepare and serve food for her husband. These are facts occurring every day, and not to be denied. What I lament is, that, seeing the women thus dependent and exposed to every misery, you feel for them no compassion, that might exempt them from being tied down and burnt to death.",
      "time": {
        "start_year": 1820,
        "start_month": null,
        "start_date": null,
        "end_year": 1820,
        "end_month": null,
        "end_date": null,
        "time_display": "1820 AD"
      },
      "meta": {
        "people": [
          "Rammohun Roy"
        ],
        "places": [
          "Bengal"
        ],
        "event": "Rammohun Roy condemns the domestic enslavement of women and calls for compassion to spare them from being tied down and burned.",
        "tags": [
          "Sati",
          "Women",
          "Social Reform"
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}