Dhondo Keshav Karve - Second Marriage

Second Marriage

Reformatory thoughts concerning the then prevalent harsh social mores against womankind, stated above, were already stirring up the mind of Karve by the time Radhabai died. Implementing his own reformatory thoughts with extraordinary courage, two years later he chose as his second wife a widow—a 23-year-old widow named Godubāi-- rather than an unmarried girl whom he could have easily arranged to secure as his new wife according to the prevalent social mores. Godubai, who had been widowed at age 8 within three months of her marriage even before she knew, as she would say later, what it was to be a wife. Before marrying Karve, Godubai had started studying in her early twenties at Panditā Ramābāi’s pioneering Shāradā Sadan as its first widow student, and had also displayed equal courage, like Karve, in defying social mores against remarriages by widows.