The parishes were grouped into deaneries called "Varados". Every parish was divided into wards, while Parish Councils were present in most parishes. About 15 percent of the households in the parishes were literate. A widow had to remain indoors, practically for the rest of her life. Since high-caste Hindu widows cannot remarry after the death of their husbands, the high-caste Christians too considered the remarriage of a widow as something unnatural. Canon law did allow remarriage for widows and therefore there was no direct prohibition for widows to remarry in the society of the Christians of South Canara. Few women had the courage to go against the strict conventions of their community. A widow who remarried was looked down upon, pitied, and shunned as unlucky. But she was not ill-treated or made an outcast, and no stigma was attached to her husband. Succession to property was practised as per the Hindu laws.