Position of Widows: Women are said to have given up eating greens and bathing in cold water when their husbands fell in battle. The lot of wid- ows was a hard one; they had to cut off their hair, discard all ornaments, and only eat the plainest food. No wonder, perhaps, that some wives preferred to die with their husbands and earn fame as satis. The tonsure of widows, it may be noted by the way, like the tying of the tali and the marriage ceremony, was obviously a pre-Aryan Tamil custom taken over and perpetuated into later times.