Again, how can love exist here?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/05/damon.india.widows/index.html

Do young Hindu children look at their mother, preparing to abandon her the moment their father dies?

At the same time that I am glad that my culture does not believe that a woman's worth is entirely based on another person, I know how easy it would be for culture to revert.

Then again, why do we feel so much pity for the 22 year-old war widow? I'm 26, and I can see my life spread out before me like a great valley of milk and honey. When bad things happen, I just close that chapter and move on. Sure, it hurts to lose a loved one, especially when it is so unexpected, but how many ex-boyfriends do we never ever want to see again? Admittedly, thats a little harsh, but the point is that the 22 year-old war widow has probably 75% of her life yet to live.

I have a post in mind - an unfinished post - about why sexists hate when women are famous. The long and short is that men feel that they are the important ones - all based on the reaction the hunting party would get when they returned to camp with the big kill. The camp was celebrating the arrival of meat, protein, and the hunting party thought that made them special. So men assumed that they deserved all the celebration.

This doesn't even get into the innate and unconcious jealousy men have of women. Women know that their kids are their own, and that by getting pregnant, they will pass on their genetic material. Men do not have this luxury, which is just one part of my "evolution of sexism" theory, and they know it. The ultimate goal of life is to sustain life, and pass on genetic material. Women have more control over this than men, and men have been punishing us for it for a long time.

In the tradition detailed above, the punishment is the devaluing women so much that their entire worth is based on their association with a single living man. Conversely, he is so important that his death is more than one death, it must be two. So I ask, how can a whole society be so horrible? How does a woman enter a marriage knowing that she will end her own life cast out of her family? How can a mother love a child she knows will only love her as long as her husband lives? Thank goodness there are those, within the society, who won't stand for it.