Should a widow remarry or not..?????

[dndeswal]

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An unnecessary debate is going on due to lack of knowledge of our age-old traditions which have proven their strength beyond doubt. I mean we Jats are true inheritors of Vedic culture. The debate about remarriage of widows has been continuing for thousands of years. As Kalkhande Sahab has rightly pointed out above, we Jats are already following the best possible options.

In the Chapter 4 of Satyarthprakash, there is a detailed description about the options for a widow. It is not possible to translate everything here. The Vedic definition of word "Devar" is given as under, in Satyarthprakash:

Quote

Question: If there is no younger brother of the deceased husband, with whom the widow should try her 'Niyog' ?

Answer : With Devar. But the meaning of 'Devar is not as you think. The younger brother, the elder brother, someone of our caste ("varnaa") or of a higher caste - 'Devar' is he with whom the widow makes the ritual of 'Niyog' .

UNQUOTE

The definition of 'Niyog' is given in detail. We should read it in the book. In short, 'Niyog' used to be a ritual where a widow chooses a person for the purpose of conception. Such a person has no relationship with her, the children or their property, after the children are born. He also has no responsibility to look after those children. The children born will deemed to be the sons and daughters of the deceased father. Pandavas were born with the same method. Same was the case with Dhritrashtra, Pandu and Vidur - the biological father of all three was Vedvyas.

Discussing a topic is different but the realities to be faced are quite contrary.

There is perhaps no need to follow Western thoughts of today - it is a wastage of time. Our Vedic culture always gives great respect to womenfolk even in circumstances such as after being a widow. Later, the "Hindu" customs were the creations of a few vested interests i.e. the so called religious 'pundits'. And we Jats are the inheritors of that Vedic culture, not the "Hindu" one.
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[dahiyarules]

Question is: Who all are willing to marry widows. I see some very patronizing males on this forum supporting the idea. But, if someday you were facing a decision to get married, would you be willing to marry a widow?

 

[sampuran]

Dear Sampuran bhai

We had a genuine feeling that you are unaware of jat traditions and jat ethos.
I mean equality ,dignity of labour,secular approach,and a pride in our history.

Though you have never said I am a jat, saying I may be mali,rajput or jat,sometimes you give vague references as I started this thread do we jats have......,

These things apart,we really appreciate your concern for nation and your intelligence,but your hate for budhism,muslim,christian,and your strange logics that rajput took swords to defend hindhuism,jats are as scum as brahmans,they can be related to chamars and so on forces us to wonder what your real motives are?

So please clear the picture,even if a non jat you are most welcome.

Kharab Bhai.
Earlier on you had asked similar question, hope you read my reply properly.
Let me repeat. My Gotr is Gahlot. In UP, Haryana and Delhi Gahlots are Jats. But through this forum only I came to know that in Rajasthan Gehlots are considered to be Maalis. Of course, I had read in media that Sh Ashok Gehlot was a lower caste Jat. Which obviously did not make sense because Jats have no casteism amongst themselves.
Now choic is yours what you want to consider me. I would like to keep believing what has been the norm in Delhi & Haryana.

Since when have expression of unorthodox or uncommon ideas become measure of a person's lineage or sincere intentions ? Lets say I was not a Jat, will that materially change the nature of the discussion. I think we are digressing for no valuable reason.


Who told you I hate Buddhism ? Noneof my posts evn indicates that a veee bit. I had merely pointed out the weakness of Buddhism in that post about history of Jats in reply to Ch Ashok verma's thread. Seeing the condition of Buddhist lands since the advent of Christianity and Islam, it is cler to everyone that the social structure proposed by Buddhism lacks that element of security and safety. So when the Muslims came, there was no body to fight them, and they either massacred the Buddhists or forced them to convert. Does it mean I hate Buddhism ?

Ditto for Islam and Christianity. I think these are ideologies at controlling political power rather than religions. Because both are bereft of spirituality. Just try to giv one example of any spiritual work, experience, evolution, thesis that these two have producd since their advent.

One certainly cant hate them evn though their tenets and history are full of cruelity and immorality. Hate does not change the world for better. Hate karne ke liye to ye dono hi kafi hain.

 

[positivelook]

I think everthing matters on individual to individual and time so it all depend on circumsatnces and age and family background. So no comments more than this.

Abhimanyu Phougat

 

[narenderkharb]

Sampuran Bhai

You are again avoiding,a simple straight forward question through excellent words craftmanhip as you avoided earlier also.

Are you a jat or not?

You know very well in haryana up and delhi ghelot surname is used by different groups from malis, rajput and jats.

But ghelot jats are JATS not considered jats as you want to suggest.

Though different jat surnames are adopted by different sections but their casts never change,so I HOPE YOU ARE VERY WELL AWARE OF IT.

Now whether this will alter the coruse of our discussion, certainly not.

But we will know that we have to walk an extra yard to convince sampuran bhai,which we will certainly do.

As you might be very well aware that racial affinity do colour your perceptions.

A recent example I mentioned about sirsili village when we stressed in western UP most Tomars are jats ,one guy quoted this village from internet and wrote see this rajput tomar village.The facts as we know thanks to the efforts of rahul were just the opposite ,what he said.

You see how these guys who converted Jat tomar rulers of delhi for approximately four centuries in to Rajputs,are dong it on mass level converting entire village to jats in to village of rajputs.

I hope my intentions are not wrtong.

 

[jyotijoon]

Question is: Who all are willing to marry widows. I see some very patronizing males on this forum supporting the idea. But, if someday you were facing a decision to get married, would you be willing to marry a widow?

Good question Sumit ji.kya koi bhi apna beta ki shaadi ek vidhawa se karna chahiga.(If she is not from their family.) khana asaan hai, karna mushkil hi

 

[sampuran]

Sampuran Bhai

You are again avoiding,a simple straight forward question through excellent words craftmanhip as you avoided earlier also.

Are you a jat or not?

You know very well in haryana up and delhi ghelot surname is used by different groups from malis, rajput and jats.

Please give one example from Haryana or Delhi.

But ghelot jats are JATS not considered jats as you want to suggest.

What does that mean ?

Though different jat surnames are adopted by different sections but their casts never change,so I HOPE YOU ARE VERY WELL AWARE OF IT.

In another discussion about casteism you said we Jats dont believe in castes ? In still another one you said Jat is a race, a race, race. To me that doesnt seem very clear.

Now whether this will alter the coruse of our discussion, certainly not.

But we will know that we have to walk an extra yard to convince sampuran bhai,which we will certainly do.

As you might be very well aware that racial affinity do colour your perceptions.

The topic was widow remarriage. And my first reply was wrt a post by a member - If I were in place of my father, I would have re-married my bhabhi as my own daughter.
But rather than understanding the menaning and context of what I wrote, you decided to go by Ravi bhai's scepticism that I was not aware of Jat traditions . And by inference I was not a Jat !

Racial affinity colouring my perception ? I think its the other way around. Please read most of my posts on the site. I have been trying to say that we hav to rise above racial or caste prejudices.

A recent example I mentioned about sirsili village when we stressed in western UP most Tomars are jats ,one guy quoted this village from internet and wrote see this rajput tomar village.The facts as we know thanks to the efforts of rahul were just the opposite ,what he said.

You see how these guys who converted Jat tomar rulers of delhi for approximately four centuries in to Rajputs,are dong it on mass level converting entire village to jats in to village of rajputs.

This kind of activity is certainly reprehensible. Still to my mind there is no racial differentiation between Jats and Rajputs. Differences are created by vested interests and ignorance.
Again we can keep fighting amongst ourselves and let the external enemies nibble onto our roots.

I hope my intentions are not wrtong.

Not at all. Its most welcom. 'Shanka' aur 'tark-vitark' se hi gyan badhta hai.
But hope we can switch to e-mail rather than clogging this topic.

 

[narenderkharb]

Ghelot saheb only one word reqired ,Yes or NO,if You are, say Yes I am a jat,as we all jats do.This is the last time otherwise, I won't ask again.

 

[arunshamli]

Ghelot saheb only one word reqired ,Yes or NO,if You are, say Yes I am a jat,as we all jats do.This is the last time otherwise, I won't ask again.

Naredar bhai kya bacho jaise jid laga rakhi hai....asking the same thing again and again.....dont you think this is too much..????????

 

[narenderkharb]

Arun tum kah rahe ho to lo jid chodh di.

 

[jat-is-jat]

Arun tum kah rahe ho to lo jid chodh di.

BUT WHAT IS WRONG WITH SAMPURAN SINGH? WHY HE DIDN'T SAY "YES I AM A JAT"

 

[ravichaudhary]

what is suitable match for her if she has very young kids?
can she marry to a unmarried person or she should marry to a divorced,widower,older than her...........?
If a unmarried boy wants to marry her will his family accept her and her kids or it will be a stigma to their family.

It is perfectly acceptable that a widowed girl, be married off, to anyone who is suitable, be they in the extended family, and for greater clarity,or outside the extended family if no suitable match could be found in the extended family.

This was and is the tradition.


In future , we may expect less of remmariage in the extended family, and the norm to be of re-marriage of the widowed girl outside the family.

Widow re marriage is also now being accepted in " sanathan dharmi" hindus, and we will see more and more of that in the future.

 

[ravichaudhary]

.
Our Vedic culture always gives great respect to womenfolk even in circumstances such as after being a widow. Later, the "Hindu" customs were the creations of a few vested interests i.e. the so called religious 'pundits'. And we Jats are the inheritors of that Vedic culture, not the "Hindu" one.
.

Quite so


If I may, the concept of Niyog, is a ' hindu", "Brahministic' custom.

The woman, in that paradigm, is treated as an articifical machine, a producer of a baby.

This is not the Jat/Vedic custom.

The Arya Samaj teachings of Swami Dayanand, did not clash with the ancient jat customs of widow remmarige, for they were only doing what they had done from ancient Rig Vedic times, circa 2500 BCE, and they continued to follow their customs..

The Jats did not accept the Niyog Concept as propounded by Swami Dayanand.

That concept does not apply to the Jats.

Ravi Chaudhary

 

[ravichaudhary]

Question is: Who all are willing to marry widows. I see some very patronizing males on this forum supporting the idea. But, if someday you were facing a decision to get married, would you be willing to marry a widow?

Plenty of people marry widows.

They just choose not to make a song and dance about it.

If we look around us, we will find we know plenty of people who have married widows.

Among the Jats this is very common.

What does happen is the as the Jats leave their home village communities, their younger generation grow up outside the influence of their ancient culture, and they get less and less supportive message inputs.


They start to question their beliefs and customs, (which they should) and start to shy away from the ancient values( which latter they do not have to).




The input they receive from society of a Jat ,is a negative image

An image that is a crude image, of being uncouth, rustic, simple minded, a villager, a dacoit and a bandit, robber, a troublemaker.

Their self esteem declines.

They are not taught that theirs' is an ancient culture, and they contributed much to society from spiritual and religious texts, to martial arts, to education, and to nation building.

Quite naturally many have no clue, and when questions like serious questions are raised, they wish to hide the fact they are Jat, and fall prey to illusion of "Hindu/ Brahminist" society, which do not understand or follow Vedic values.

One of the purposes of this site, and others including Dudheeji's ********.net and our Yahoo JatHistory group is the bring the material before our community, for all- old and young, male and female, to educate them about our achievements, our role models, and our values and first and foremost to develop a positive image of the Jats for the generations to follow.

Hopefully that will enable a healthy discussion to take place, as we question our belief systems, which as I have said before we should and must, and learn from that.


Ravi Chaudhary

 

[ravichaudhary]

Plenty of people marry widows.

They just choose not to make a song and dance about it.

If we look around us, we will find we know plenty of people who have married widows.

Among the Jats this is very common.

What does happen is the as the Jats leave their home village communities, their younger generation grow up outside the influence of their ancient culture, and they get less and less supportive message inputs.


They start to question their beliefs and customs, (which they should) and start to shy away from the ancient values.



One of the purposes of this site, and others including Dudheeji's ********.net and our Yahoo JatHistory group is the bring the material before our community, for all- old and young, male and female, to educate them about our achievements, our role models, and our values and first and foremost to develop a positive image of the Jats for the generations to follow.


Ravi Chaudhary

I had typed in ********.net

the word "Jat World" as one word '********' does not appear.

Any reason it does not appear?

Could adminstrators please advise?

 

[dndeswal]

.
Thanks Ravi bhai for taking interest in this debate.

Yes, the tradition of 'Niyog' has not been practised in Jats on a large scale. Swamiji has mentioned that it has to be adopted in very rare and exceptional circumstances such as cited in Mahabharata. Naturally a Maharani cannot be married outside the palace and there were no choices for remarriage in the royal family. Swamiji was a great advocate of widow marriage but there are limits of such a marriage, according to Vedic customs which have been explained by him in his books.
.

 

[ravichaudhary]

.
Thanks Ravi bhai for taking interest in this debate.

Yes, the tradition of 'Niyog' has not been practised in Jats on a large scale. Swamiji has mentioned that it has to be adopted in very rare and exceptional circumstances such as cited in Mahabharata. Naturally a Maharani cannot be married outside the palace and there were no choices for remarriage in the royal family. Swamiji was a great advocate of widow marriage but there are limits of such a marriage, according to Vedic customs which have been explained by him in his books.
.

I will challenge you to show me where the concept of "Niyog" is practised by Jats, even on a small scale.

Every thing that Swami Dayanand said, cannot be taken to be the absolute truth.


The concept of ' niyog' is to use the womb of a woman to beget offspring. In other words to 'rent' out her womb.

This is not a Jat custom, nor is it a Vedic custom.

The Jat custom is Widow remarriage, with full honour.

Remarriage to one of the extended family, or outside, with full honour to the girl. and to her children, old and new.

In the Jat society there was/is no discrimination.

The Satyarth Prakash in this context does not apply to the Jat society.

They also followed widow re marriage before Swami Dayanand and had son so for thousands of years.

Jats are not the only people who follow widow remarriage.
We finds this custom, in the Gurjars, Abhirs, Veershaivites ( in Karnataka).

Thus the bulk of the populatin did not follow the ' neo Hindu' custom.


It is just that in the “neo- Hindu- sanatan Dharm”, stream this concept of Widow remarriage was eliminated, and hyped to the extent that it was considered, as something negative.

Why and how this occurred is a different matter.

 

[dndeswal]

I will challenge you to show me where the concept of "Niyog" is practised by Jats, even on a small scale.

Every thing that Swami Dayanand said, cannot be taken to be the absolute truth.




This is not the topic of discussion, the topic is marriage of widows. It is not the question of "Challenge". Swamy Dayanand has himself written that he is not the final authority and everything is subject to debate. He has also not written that this tradition was prevalent in Jats. He has definitely written that to a small extent this was prevalent at the time of Mahabharat, because of certain circumstances. Jats have been a part of society before Mahabharat. When large scale wars take place and when thousands of youngmen are killed during wars, thousands of women too become widows. So, this custom must be prevalent, though at the level of barest minimum during that period in some societies, if not in Jats. So, better read his books. About 3 pages have been devoted in Satyarthprakash about this custom, giving vast details and removing many doubts. Everything cannot be translated here, as I have said. There is no harm in reading something - one may agree or not, it is upto the individual.

The central point is that traditionally, we Jats are already following the best options for remarriage of widows, compared to other societies.
.

 

[raj_rathee]

This discussion with regard to history seems to be misplaced. History is a tool. It is a source of accumulated knowledge (just like old men and their tales). We use it
to make more informed decisions about current issues.

If you want to raise historical context while discussing the topic raised, what you
might want to do is to bring about points as to why or why not was widow
remarriage encouraged or frowned upon. That might be more useful than debating
one man's (Swami Dhaynand's) unqualified statements.

Perhaps doing that might help us on deciding if widows should remarry. And
since most educated contemporary thinkers will undoubtedly answer in the
affirmative, what might be more interesting is to hear why widows should NOT
remarry.

If there are none to support that, then the debate is pretty much non-existent. Any
remaining discussion can be moved to the history section.

 

[raj_rathee]

Vaise Deswal yaar, aapki photo Swami Dhaynand ki portrait se bahot milti julti hai.
Koi relationship hai kya unse ?