It is never fair for women especially if their husbands passed away at the prime of their lives.
Who is to be blamed? Not the husband of course.
The women will be blamed to be ill-fated and bring bad luck to their husbands.
Brides are advised not to get too near to widows for fear they may encounter the same fate as these widows.
Remeber I mentioned that widows are banned from going into the newly-wed room so as not to pass on the negative "Qi" or energy to the newly-wed.
In ancient times, men are permitted to marry as and when they wished if they got sick of their wives.
In addition, these men were seen as very capable as they could afford to have more than one wife.
I still remembered I read about this rich farmer who built a separate house for each of his four wives and he even got another wife when he was in his sixties!!! However, for female, they didn't get to share such status as men.
In fact, women were considered as a lower class compared to men.
In any case for widows, they were not allowed to get married immediately but they had to spend three years in mourning.
And if they wanted to remarry, they had to get the permission from the parents-in-law.
If it was denied, she had to work as a slave for the family till the last day of her life.
Very unfortunate and unfair, isn't it? Again in olden times, widows who didn't remarry and managed to raise up their children were awarded the plaque of chastity and they had to display their plaques in the main hall to show that they had made an achievement of being dependent all these years.
In fact, women had been the focus of abuse and had been ill-treated because of how the culture, custom and society see them.
Nowadays, modern women could be financially dependent and if their husbands passed away before them, these women can choose for themselves if they want to remarry or not.