suttee

suttee - n - A Hindu practice whereby a widow immolates herself on the funeral pyre of her husband: now abolished by law.

This wicked practice was outlawed by the English. The widow's immolation was supposed to be voluntary, but it's been much debated how great an influence social pressures played in her decision.

It's amazing the extent to which Franz Boaz's cultural relativism has become part of the collective consciousness. Allen Bloom told how his studentss could never bring themselves to condemn suttee; their most common opinion was that the English shouldn't have been there in the first place. I tried Bloom's experiment on a friend. "Were the English right to put a stop to this monstrous practice?" I asked. I'll bet you can guess his answer.