Widow sacrifice was aristocratic fashion, not legal obligation, even in India

Evidence

In all regimes where woman is under guardianship, one of the problems is what to do with widows. The most radical solution is to sacrifice them on their husbands’ tombs. But it is not true that even in India the law imposes such holocausts; the Laws of Manu permit a wife to survive a husband; spectacular suicides have never been more than an aristocratic fashion. It is far more frequent for the widow to be handed over to her husband’s heirs. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 185

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the already-published essay ‘On Sacrifice: The Real Kind, with Corpses’ on suttee/sati practices.
• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to the suttee/sati discussion in the sacrifice essay, offering a contrarian corrective that the Laws of Manu permitted widow survival.