And don't forget the lovely custom of suttee.
I don't know if sati/sutee was that widespread. Vedas don't even mention it, and epics such as Mahabharata there are thousands of accounts of deaths of men... and only 1 time there is the sutee account.
If it was a required/widespread custom, then there would be accounts of sati all over the scriptures(Hindu scriptures are extremely war-like and the accounts of deaths and destruction are recorded like action movies).