Widows of Colonial Bengal: Gender, Morality, and Cultural Representation seeks to explore the unique vulnerability and precarity of widowhood in Bengal during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A major purpose of this study is to re-examine the official and indigenous discourses surrounding the widely debated Widow Remarriage Act of 1856; another is to situate the ‘widow problem’—rooted in the historical context of a heightened preoccupation with marriage, remarriage, sexuality and survival—within contemporary cultural representations.

The focus of this volume is the tussle between the colonial state, reformist demands, and nationalist pressures, mapping out the shifting diagnosis of the moral and material ills associated with widowhood. While exploring the dynamic interplay between devotion and deviance, this book also offers glimpses into some widows’ acts of resistance.