Wider Image: Water Wives Of Maharashtra

Shivarti, the second wife of Namdeo, holds her grandson while carrying metal pitchers filled with water from a well outside Denganmal village, Maharashtra, India, April 21, 2015. In Denganmal, a village in Maharashtra state, some men take a second or third wife just to make sure their households have enough drinking water. Becoming what are known as “water wives” allows the women, often widows or single mothers, to regain respect in conservative rural India by carrying water from the well quite some distance from the remote village. When the water wife, who does not usually share the marital bed, becomes too old to continue, the husband sometimes takes a third and younger spouse to fetch the water in metal pitchers or makeshift containers. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

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