[sagar]

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).

[ARridgerunner]

The widows chose sati. Very rare. Not required. The women who chose it were very honored.

Not surprising the West could not understand a woman so devoted to her husband that she prefers death - literal and symbolic - to life without her husband.