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# The custom of sati among Indo-European peoples and its ban in India in 1829
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/obychai-sozhzheniia-zhion-posle-smerti-muzha-sushchestvoval-u-mnogikh-indoevropeiskikh-narodov-naibolee-sovremennoe-ego-proiavlenie-traditsiia-samosozhzheniia-zhion-sokhraniavshaiasia-v/
- Published: 2020-12-04T08:36:45.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:00:49.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Faith, The East, Mores, Ethnography

The custom of burning wives after the death of their husbands existed among many Indo-European peoples; its most recent manifestation is the tradition of wives' self-immolation, which survived in India until the mid-nineteenth century. Sati was officially banned in 1829, but cases of widow self-immolation occurred later still. The custom is well described and its conditions varied over time, but in general it consisted of the following: at the moment of her husband's death or soon afterwards, possibly at the burning of his body, the wife began to lament, "sat, sat, sat". This meant that she wished to give her body to the fire and be united with her spouse beneath the wedding canopy in heaven, and she surrendered herself to renunciation and hunger until she mounted the pyre. Her kin were obliged to prepare the fire: to bring logs, brushwood and combustible mixtures, and to accompany the widow as she ascended the blazing altar. For centuries rulers tried to prohibit sati, but in vain: widows went to the pyre all the same. At most, on occasion, under threat of punishment, the relatives themselves built the funeral pyre.