Meanwhile, women had a sometimes ambiguous status in the āśrama system. On the one hand, they were important in running the home and maintaining home rituals, but they were also potentially impure because of menstruation (considered a kind of pollution).
Traditionally, a higher-caste women was expected to follow male authority, first with her father and then her husband.
Because she was expected to be dependent on her husband, a woman whose husband had died very often had a difficult life because she had no one to look after her wellbeing.
In extreme cases where a woman depended on her husband, perhaps even to the point where he was like a god, she might even throw herself on his funeral pyre.
The wife’s self-immolation in this way is known as satī. It was understood that her life had no meaning or purpose without her husband, so she could die with him.