By undermining the possibility of the widows' agency, they could discredit the governmental construction of "voluntary" sati on which toleration of the rite was based.
Early modern accounts reflect both condemnation and praise, as individual reactions to sati were conditioned by personal experience.
This heroic treatment of sati was echoed in many of the accounts of the period.
Archer advances this claim through a discussion of travel narratives that describe sati and other cultural practices representing the paradoxical blend of tradition and degeneration.
In so doing, the traces of nationalism's genealogy in the earlier discourses on social reform- and, beyond that, sati-become apparent.
Yet, as scholars have noted, sati does not have legitimate scriptural sanction.#!
This meant that women were debarred from sati if, among other things, they were under sixteen, pregnant, intoxicated or, most importantly, unwilling.
Missionaries were influential in the debate over sati and the subsequent outlaw of its practice.
