When the husband is on a journey, the wife is not to remain alone in the house, but is to repair to the dwelling of her parents, brethren, or relations; and if, on her husband’s death, she become not a _Sattee_, that is, burn herself with the deceased, she is then to reside with his relations, devoting herself to rigid abstinence and the worship of the Almighty. They say that when a woman becomes a _Sattee_, the Almighty pardons all the sins committed by the wife and husband, and that they remain a long time in paradise:[110] nay, if the husband were in the infernal regions, the wife by this means draws him from thence and takes him to paradise; just as the serpent-catcher charms the serpent out of his hole. Moreover the Sattee, in a future birth, returns not to the female sex; but should she reassume the human nature, she appears as a man; but she who becomes not a Sattee, and passes her life in widowhood, is never emancipated from the female state. It is therefore the duty of every woman, excepting one that is pregnant, to enter into the blazing fire along with her deceased husband; a Brahman’s wife in particular is to devote herself in the same fire with her husband; but others are allowed to perform the rite in a separate place. It is however criminal to force the woman into the fire, and equally so to prevent her who voluntarily devotes herself.[111] The enlightened doctors say, that by a woman’s becoming a Sattee is meant that, on her husband’s decease, she should consume in the fire along with him all her desires, and thus die before the period assigned by nature; as in metaphysical language woman signifies “passion,” or in other words, she is to cast all her passions into the fire; but not throw herself into it along with the deceased, which is far from being praiseworthy. A respectable woman must not from vanity expose herself to the gaze of a stranger, but she is to wear a dress which will completely cover her to the sole of the foot. It is to be noted, that the son of a Brahman by a Chattri female is not of the father’s caste, but a superior Chattri. It is moreover laid down as a rule that a Brahman, on becoming a Brahmachárí, should regularly worship the fire, which fire he is to discontinue at the time of the marriage contract; but on that occasion he is bound to light another fire and to recite the prescribed prayers, so that it may be as a witness of the compact entered into between husband and wife: also, after the celebration of the marriage, they are to repeat the prayers prescribed at the time of lighting the fire which they are ever after to worship daily.