SOURCE: Betts, Christopher. “Constructing Utilitarianism: Montesquieu on Suttee in the Letters Persanes,” French Studies 51, 1 (January, 1997): 19-29.

In this essay, Betts casts a critical eye on Letter 125 of Montesquieu's Persian Letters, in which Montesquieu condemns the Hindu custom of sati, to demonstrate that the principles underlying his argument anticipate the Utilitarianism of a later era. Betts also raises the possibility that the coded message of the letter is not anti-Hindu but anti-Christian.

The one hundred and twenty-fifth letter of the Lettres persanes, the text of which will be found at the end of this article, consists of a story preceded by a discursive introductory section, both light in tone. The subject of the narrative section is suttee, or sati, the Hindu custom according to which a woman newly widowed burns herself alive on her husband's funeral pyre. The letter can be read in various ways. If we take it...