"Nevertheless, woman enjoyed far greater freedom in the Vedic period than in later India. She had more to say in the choice of her mate than the forms of marriage might suggest. She appeared freely at feasts and dances, and joined with men in religious sacrifice. She could study, and might, like Gargi, engage in philosophic disputation. If she was left a widow there were no restrictions upon her remarriage. In the Heroic Age woman seems to have lost something of this liberty. She was discouraged from mental pursuits, on the ground that "for a woman to study the Vedas indicates confusion in the realm;" the remarriage of widows became uncommon; purdah the seclusion of women began; and the practice of suttee, almost unknown in Vedic times, increased. The ideal woman was now typified in the heroine of the Ramayana that faithful Sita who follows and obeys her husband humbly, through every test of fidelity and courage, until her death."