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Chapter – III

Marital Canopy: Fragmentation of Marital Bonds

Having taken seven steps with me, be my friend:

be my inseparable companion …

come, let us walk together, with this guiding lamp between us

... I am the word and you are the melody,

I am the melody and you are the word. –Githa Hariharan (TFN)

Definitions of family values are inextricably interlinked with definitions of

marriage and female loyalty to familial values. Woman as mother and wife is regarded as

the custodian of family values and her role in keeping the cohesion of a large family is

stressed. The institution of marriage is the central feature of all forms of human society.

It is the deepest as well as the most complex of all human relations. It is supposed to be

the holy union of two souls and bodies. It is the foundation of the family which is a

social group consisting of parents and children. It is the oldest and most powerful social

institution that has withstood the test of time. Marriage defines the procedures for

establishing and terminating the husband-wife relation. Marriage and man-woman

relationship, therefore, become crucial aspects in any study of family. The theme of

marriage and familial relations find exquisite manifestation in the texts under study. As

seen in the quotation cited above, a marriage partner should be everything: best friend,

terrific sex partner, sympathetic confidante, good provider. Failure of this results in

broken relationships. Why and how marital discord weakens the family unit is analysed

in the following pages.

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The women of the previous generation willingly or out of compulsion submit

themselves to the domineering attitude of men. The mothers of Ammu, Janu, Virmati,

Devi, Sumi and Margaret succumb to the secondary status relegated to them. They also

tutor and groom their daughters towards such a sacrificial marital life. Uma rightly says,

“Willingly or unwillingly, the Hindu woman passes on the legacy of the patriarchal

system to her daughter who may either accept it implicitly or may question it but may

finally accede to it” (68).

According to sociologists, marriage is a cultural phenomenon that sanctions a

more or less permanent union between partners conferring legitimacy on their offspring.

The Hindu marriage, however, is a religious sacrament in which a man and woman are

bound in permanent relationship for physical, social and spiritual purposes for sexual

pleasure, procreation and the observance of “dharma”. Amongst Hindus, the wife is

known as “Ardhangini” or “Sahadharmine”, terms which emphasize the quality and

oneness with the husband. In marriage, oneness, companionship, and mutuality are

stressed. It is assumed that the interests of the husband and wife are one, that whatever is

for the benefit of the one is for the benefit of the other also. The consent of a woman

about the choice of her spouse is always taken for granted and she is expected to adopt

herself to suit the requirements of the man.

In all the texts taken for study, there is an under current running around the

importance given to the institution of marriage. Marriage is always associated with

culture and tradition. For women, especially, it is tradition that trains them from an early

age to be a good wife and a mother. In selecting life partners, society has certain rules,
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determining when one should get married and in whose house one should reside and so

on. Social restrictions and the individual’s choice are at perpetual confrontation.

As girls were/are going to be wives and mothers, they were/are brought up to be

sweet, gentle, submissive and subservient to males, hence affirming qualities of love,

nurturance and self-sacrifice and muting self-assertion and aggression. A wife should be

like a slave while serving, a minister when counseling, Goddess Lakshmi in her looks,

the earth in forbearance, a mother while feeding, Rambha, the celestial prostitute in bed–

these six are the true characteristics of an ideal wife. Anything that encouraged

independence was seen as a threat to their future role as bearers of children. They

imbibed these ideals of androcentric culture. As the public images override their personal

selves, they become willing victims to patriarchal expectations. This notion is not only

common to the Indian tradition but it suits all women all over the world. Mary

Wollstonecraft rightly states, “Women are told from their infancy, and taught by the

example of their mothers that…softness of temper, outward obedience and a scrupulous

attention to a puerile kind of propriety will obtain for them the protection of man…” (21).

All the mothers in the novels under study glorify the institution of marriage and

willingly seem to accept patriarchal domination under such circumstances. For instance,

Akila’s mother in Ladies Coupé belongs to the “old school of thought”. Sometimes,

through her actions, and sometimes through her words, she counsels Akila that a perfect

woman is the one who blends with the environment.

There is no such thing as an equal marriage,… it is best to accept that the

wife is inferior to the husband. That way, there can be no strife, no

disharmony. It is when one wants to prove one’s equality that there is

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warring and sparring all the time. It is so much easier and simpler to

accept one’s station in life and live accordingly. A woman is not meant to

take on a man’s role. Or the Gods would have made her so. So what is all

this about two equals in a marriage? (LC 14).

Similarly, we find Janaki tutored with the same idea in Ancient Promises. Her

mother says, “The reputations of families were carried on the shoulders of their

daughters” (AP 46-47). It is very clear that it is women who are responsible for keeping

the family from falling apart. Ahalya, Sita, Draupadi, Tara, Mandohari – these five

women in Indian mythological works have represented for centuries, the ultimate women

in Indian society. Indian girls are brought up with the only aim of leading a life on the

path trodden by these sacred and much revered women in Hindu tradition. These women

were not goddesses but were devoted wives and mothers. This is the ideal that has been

held out to generations of Indian women.

There are three mentors in Devi’s life in The Thousand Faces of Night. They are

her grandmother, mother and later her housekeeper. “When you marry, Devi,” her

grandmother says, “your heart moves up to your shoulder and slips down your arm to the

palm of your hand. The hand that holds yours tightly as you walk round the fire receives

it like a gift. You can’t do anything about it. When you marry, it goes to him and you

never get it back” (TFN 37). In the initial phase of her growing up, Devi comes under the

influence of her grandmother who narrates to her the tales of mythical heroines, making

subtle connections between the profound and awe inspiring lives of the mythological

women and the sordid stories of real women around her. Gandhari blindfolds herself for

the sake of her husband. Amba transforms her fate, her hatred for Bheeshma who has
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wronged her and turns her feminine fulfillment into sweet revenge and glorious triumph.

She is also ingrained with the idea that “a woman without a husband has no home” (TFN,

38). The ideas inculcated in her through myth and religion, and even the formal

education given to her are oriented towards moulding her personality in such a way as to

ensure the smooth family atmosphere.

Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters traces the story of three generations of

daughters. All the three sets categorically centre on the very idea and spirit of marriage

in the Indian context. The first one consists of Lajwanti, Kasturi, Harish’s mother

Kishori and his first wife Ganga. Their marriages date back to the pre-independence era.

For instance, Manju Kapur records Ganga’s view of marriage in the following words,

“Her husband continued to be her public statement of selfhood. Her bindi and bangles,

her toe rings and her mangal sutra, all managed to suggest that he was still her God” (DD

25). Virmati who belongs to the second set is also brought up to be a wife and a mother

on the consciously inculcated idea of the Indian feminine role. The older generation

seems to be very particular about marriage, which according to them is the only door to

happiness and satisfaction for women. Though they believe in education for girls, they

also believe that girls must be married off. This belief still persists in Indian society

unless the daughters are strong and career oriented. Kasturi, Virmati’s mother tells her

that, it is “the duty of every girl to get married,” and that “a woman’s Shaan [pride] is in

her home” (DD 13).

Indian mothers are conditioned by patriarchy and cultural and social taboos. For

them, relationship is central to their lives and they teach their daughters to endure and

continue a relationship by virtue of self-sacrifice. They feel threatened by the thought

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that if their daughters do not fit into the frame work of the given patriarchal image of an

ideal wife or daughter-in-law, they would probably face rejection and unhappiness. So, in

almost all the novels, one observes how some of the characters glorify marriage. One can

find the amount of stress that is laid on the institution of marriage. Uma observes “Subtle

indoctrination atrophies a woman’s desire to change her position as an object and to

exercise her freewill; she compromises her stand, for she is taught the importance and

necessity of a stable marriage and family ― family as security, as a source of emotional

strength” (4). So drilled/grilled with this at the back of their mind how is it possible for

the characters to create disharmony, to allow them to disintegrate from the marriage fold?

It is important to trace the various reasons that break the chords of harmony. The

marriages of Ammu, Janu, Devi and Virmati are more or less business transactions. Only

in the case of Sumi and Margaret an arranged marriage is preceded by love. Simone de

Beauvoir rightly remarks, “There is unanimous agreement that getting a husband – or in

some cases a ‘protector’ – is for her the most important of undertakings… She will free

herself from the paternal home, from her mother’s hold, she will open up her future not

by active conquest but by delivering herself up, passive and docile, into the hands of a

new master” (352).

In general, a marriageable daughter is handed over to the male partner without

considering the delicacy of her mind and feelings. As per the norms of Hindu tradition,

the concept of duty is paramount for women. According to Ananda Coomaraswamy,

“The governing concept of Hindu ethics is vocation (dharma); the highest merit consists

in the fulfilment of one’s own duty, in other words, in dedication of one’s calling” (119).

The social order is given priority over individual happiness. Woman is considered as the
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custodian of Indian culture and she is supposed to be an embodiment of the qualities of

endurance and adjustment. The concept of marriage which is related to a delicate union

of two different minds has not been properly realized in most of the Indian male-

dominated families. As most of the marriages are arranged without their consent, the

women become transplanted wives subjected to harassment by husband, in-laws and

societal expectations. During the last few decades, the family in general and in particular

in India, has been under a process of social change. This has tremendously affected the

man-woman relationship. It has touched the fringes of the family and has brought

significant changes in the structure and the various relationships in a family unit. There

is a change in the spheres of roles and values. Both men and women have become

irritable and impatient with each other. As a result they are broken hearted and

emotionally unstable. Finesse, delicacy and refinement seem to have gone away and in

their place materialism reigns. The security of joint families is lost as nuclear families

outnumber them.

A number of factors could be responsible for marital discord. Substitution of

individual aspirations for those of the family, ignorance of sex, unrealistic ideals in

marriage, selection of the spouse by the parents, deep rooted incompatibility between the

partners, difference in the cultural and social backgrounds of the spouse, absence of

children and infidelity could be classified as major factors contributing to marital discord.

Most marriages prove to be unions of incompatibility. Men are rational while women are

sentimental and emotional. Their interests, their attitudes are different. Naturally, men

look at things in a different way and react to the same situation differently. Not only is

the man himself different but his family, his values, his surroundings to which the woman
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is expected to adjust herself are entirely different. This casual attitude leads to endless

misery and suffering in the lives of women. As Germane Greer observes, “Her value is

solely attested by the demands she excited in others. All she must contribute is her

existence” (67).

Ammu’s marriage in The God of Small Things is a marriage of convenience. She

has been waiting to get married to escape from her home where there is no scope for her

for a settled life as far as she is considered.

All day she dreamed of escaping from Ayemenem and the clutches of her

ill-tempered father and bitter, long-suffering mother. She hatched several

wretched little plans to escape. Eventually, one worked. Pappachi agrees

to let her spend the summer with a distant aunt who lived in Calcutta.

(GST 38-39)

In a wedding reception in Calcutta, Ammu comes across a well-built, pleasant

looking young man of twenty five working as an assistant manager of a tea estate in

Assam. The man proposes to Ammu, she does not pretend to be in love with him. But

she considers the odds, viz.; her father would not allow her further education or be in a

position to arrange a dowry for her marriage. She thought that “anything, anyone at all,

would be better than returning to Ayemenem” (GST 39). So, she accepts the proposal

and informs her parents about it.

Devi’s marriage in The Thousand Faces of Night is a marriage, arranged and

fulfilled by her mother. Devi refuses an offer of marriage from her African - American

friend Dan because of her ambivalence towards American culture. She returns to India

for the sake of her widowed mother. Once in India her naked vulnerable self gets easily
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sucked in by the stifling cocoon of her mother’s love and concern. Placing a forbidding

hand on her daughter’s American experience gently but firmly, Sita leads Devi to the

altar of marriage. She agrees to a negotiated marriage like a good Indian girl. Devi’s

broad-mindedness, education and experiences challenge so many blind beliefs, but she

sheds her desires to fulfill her mother’s desire and to uphold the family honour.Sita

allows Devi just enough time to become adept at wearing “the right jewels and sari, the

right smile” (TFN 16), before she plays her next card and invites prospective grooms and

their families to meet her. Mostly, men and their families look for brides who will adjust.

Devi, like the other girls, is “prepared” by her mother “for show”, to be viewed “as a

potential bride” for the Srinivasans. Githa Hariharan rightly says, “So they were looking

for an accomplished bride, a young woman who would talk intelligently… fair, beautiful,

home loving and prepared to adjust” ( TFN 17 ).

Janu’s marriage in Ancient Promises is purely an arranged one. She sacrifices her

teenage love for Arjun for the sake of her family. She says, “I looked around me, here

were all the faces that I had loved virtually from the moment I was born. It would be so

easy to make everyone happy…”(AP 62) by getting married. Like Devi, Janu wraps her

memories, love and her past into a neat bundle and puts it aside and gets ready to get

married to a partner (Suresh), chosen by her family. She reconciles to her destiny saying

“I am tired of fighting off my family, they’ve proven their love for me in the eighteen

years it’s taken to bring me up. And I just can’t believe they’d push me into something

that would be wrong for me” (AP 63). Janu, like a typical South Indian girl, allows her

parents to decide her future. In Hindu Society, marriage was never considered merely a
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social and biological necessity but instead an obligatory sacrament “Punigraha”. It

symbolically refers to the husband taking charge of the wife.

In Virmati’s case in Difficult Daughter, the question of marriage and the status

given by such a union is got after a long struggle. It is a union of love, but a marriage

due to inevitable condition. Virmati’s thirst for education and the freedom that she finds

in Sakuntala her cousin make her less interested in marriage in the beginning. Added to

this is her new found love in the form of Harish. Virmati is not able to sever herself from

the magnetic pull of the already married Prof. Harish. Though she finally gets married

after lot of hassle she has to pay a heavy price for it, that too for a second marriage.

In Ladies Coupé, Margaret’s marriage to Ebe is a love marriage arranged with the

blessings of their parents. In Margaret’s words, “I was marrying the man I had fallen in

love with and not someone picked for me simply because he was suitable” (LC 103).

When she marries Ebenezar Paulraj, she has made the perfect choice according to her

family. Her brother-in-law voices their feelings, when he says. “We couldn’t have found

a better match for you if we had looked ourselves…” (LC 102). Like Margaret’s, Sumi’s

marriage to Gopal in A Matter of Time is also a love marriage. Gopal is a history lecturer

in a local college. Sumi and Gopal enjoy a harmonious relationship during the early years

of their marriage. Gopal’s frequent recapitulations reveal their joyous intimacy.

Recounting the rapture of their first physical union, Gopal thinks: “And I knew then that

it was for this, this losing yourself in another human being, that men give up their dreams

of freedom” (MT 223).

In an Indian marriage, man is not expected to make any adjustments to make the

relationship work; the woman is supposed to make all the adjustments and make the
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marriage a success somehow. The entire onus of sustaining the marital bond lies on the

woman and this creates a great deal of stress on her. Husband and family occupy the

entire emotional space of woman while wife is part of life for man. This essential

asymmetry in the marital relationship is the cause of many conflicts that arise in the lives

of married women and men. Janu, Devi, Sumi, Ammu, Margaret and Virmati enter their

new homes with great expectations. They long for love and a communion of the spirit

which they perceive as the panacea for the ills of the world. They expect physical

intimacy and an emotional bond.

When two souls come together through their marriage, some sort of difference is

bound to be there. But the marriages settled blindly and without considering the

attitudes, feelings and outlooks of the brides and bridegrooms are bound to fail. A proper

understanding of each other, a sense of wisdom and love for each other make conjugal

lives successful. Most of the families expect women to adjust. Inequality in women’s

roles is the result of male dominance in the family and in society. Living in a relationship

or family, however, means that one must deal with the desires of others. Married life is

different from single life. The partners of the protagonists under study seem not to be

conscious of their responsibilities in strengthening the family unit.

The home is inconceivable without a woman. So both man and woman are

complementary to each other. Critics and sociologists argue that family problems

basically arise because the inner situation of a family often does not provide scope and

ambience for free and fair conversation among the members of the family resulting in the

collapse of intra-family communication. The family system in India, which is stringently

hierarchized, is traditionally known for stifling communication among the members of

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the family. The status of women with respect to free communication is worse, except in

the matters relating to religion and festive rituals. Thus, patriarchal hierarchy that

percolated deep into the institution of family impairs intimate communication.

Moreover, because of the strict demarcation of gender roles, there would hardly be any

common subjects for communication.

As the world of men and women are totally different with very little overlap, a

certain amount of silence between them becomes inevitable. A successful marriage

requires personal adjustments, which are not easy to make. In the novels under study the

loving union between husband and wife is marred in many instances by discord. The

increasing self-awareness of educated women makes them impatient of orthodox images

of man-woman relationship and roles in the society. This desire for mental and economic

independence poses a strong threat to traditional familial and social structure as the

women find it increasingly difficult to adjust to the old traditions and expectations made

of them. This is the major conflict that creates disharmony in the texts under study.

Janu’s husband Suresh in Ancient Promises who is much older than her agrees to

marry Janu because she fits into the specifications he has laid down. He has been looking

for a bride who is pretty, young, has fluency in English and who is ready to adjust.

Nothing else is important to him. As result after their marriage he fails to provide Janu

with any physical, moral or emotional support. He could never really take charge of even

his own life because he seems to be merely shuttling between the office, the veranda in

the house where business matters are discussed and where women are not expected to be

present and his interminable tours on business which often seem to be an escapist play.

He is an adept at “the art of escape. There would never be any unseemly rows or loud
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arguments. Just … escape in different forms. Work, business tours, company, guests…

There would be no dearth either of plausible excuses” (AP 98).

Suresh has an indifferent attitude towards every thing that Janu attempts to

convey to him – right from her homesickness, her complaints about his family, her

loneliness at his ever lengthening trips, so on and so forth. Even the news of her

pregnancy is taken by him less enthusiastically. Perhaps, saddled with a teenager many

years his junior, it has been easiest for him to adopt an avuncular, half-amused and half

irritated attitude to marriage. Janu says, “companionship was probably the last word

either of us would have chosen to describe our relationship” (AP 114).

Janu is wrapped in loneliness. The loneliness that Janu experiences in her new

surroundings is further compounded by the fact that Suresh never seems to notice or

respond to Janu’s various moods or feelings or thoughts. “He didn’t seem to notice at all

… that there were hundreds of opportunities like that one, missed carelessly and without

thought for the price we would have to pay later. Tiny little chances to ask each other

how we were feeling. To talk and share our thoughts and learn to become friends” (AP

90). Like Devi in The Thousand Faces of Night she too is not able to spend long idle

hours doing nothing. Thus, she expresses her state. She was “the knick knack on his

mantle piece”. She was still “...looking pretty but getting very dusty indeed” (AP 101).

Truly speaking, outwardly there’s nothing serious or dangerous about the treatment.

Infact, one cannot even say that Janu is ill treated. She is quite aware that she could not

offer any tangible evidence.

There was in truth never anything terrible to suffer in the Maraar household,

just a long and constant catalogue of very small things. Too small to
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complain about, Or write letters about. Now if I were being beaten up day in

and day out, that would raise a few eyebrows I thought. But tiny insults, so

small and so subtle as to be almost invisible, could not do any grave damage,

just rob me gradually of my knowledge of myself (AP 110-111).

Though not beaten, she feels the coldness that has set inside the family. There is total

indifference and alienation.

Janu realizes that she needed “to put down roots and attempt to survive whatever

it took. But I hadn’t bargained for the fact that the soil I had been replanted in would be

so hard and unyielding. Nor did I know of yearnings that arose from distant places, too

distant to even know of” (AP 95). Further she adds “It was getting clearer that it was the

Maraars I had married not Suresh. He had not been unkind, but had not seemed to want

to spend much time alone with me” (AP 87). Janu is unable to speak her trouble out for

she is a woman who faces the suffering of her life and the opposition of the milieu in the

true spirit of ideal Hindu womanhood where obedience and loyalty has degenerated to the

state of dogged subservience. The discord in their temperamental outlook is so great that

they fail time and again to understand each other. Janu feels, “I was nineteen and I felt

completely annihilated. It felt like I had not a friend in this world…” (AP 112). Women

pay for their happiness at the cost of their freedom. De Beauvoir in The Second Sex too

states that such a sacrifice on the part of a woman is too high for anyone since the kind of

self-contentment and security that marriage offers women drains her soul of its capacity

for greatness. “She shuts behind her the doors of her new home. When she was a girl, the

whole countryside was her homeland; the forest was hers. Now she is confined to a

restricted space… (De Beauvoir 469). Inspite of Janu’s anxiety, discomfort, loneliness
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and isolation she does not express her unhappiness over her troubled relationship.

Discontentment leads to defiance and restlessness. Suresh fails to build up a satisfactory

relationship with Janu. She longs for communication. When it fails, she withdraws from

him emotionally which actually impairs their physical relationship too.

Lack of communication between Janu and Suresh precipitates familial crises. All

her efforts to move closer to him end in failure and frustration since there is certain

degree of rigidity in Suresh’s character. He shows no readiness to meet her halfway even

when she struggles to bridge the gap between them. Here is a poignant account of what

marriage implies for a woman in Indian society – transplantation into a home, which is

inimical to her temperament. She finds it hard to strike roots in the new environment

because of the absence of facilitating factors, such as friendship, love and compassion.

Thus Ancient Promises demonstrates failure of family as a consequence of failure of

intra-family communication and lack of mutual understanding.

Devi’s predicament in The Thousand Faces of Night is almost similar to Janu’s.

Married to Mahesh, a Regional Manager in a multinational company, Devi tries to fit

herself into the role of a wife and daughter-in-law just as her mother did, years ago. Sita,

Devi’s mother makes discreet inquiries and a thorough investigation of all candidates

before Devi’s marriage. What Sita thinks to be a suitable marriage for her daughter fails

at various levels. In her husband’s large old family house, it is with his father Baba and

gradually with the old family retainer; Mayamma that Devi forms the closest

attachments.

Mahesh even before their marriage openly tells Devi about his nature of work, his

tours and informs her that his father and maidservant will be there and says, “you will be
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lonely sometimes” (TFN 22). Devi too thinks from that angle and decides that she could

cope with this problem. In fact she admires Mahesh’s frankness, she says, “He is honest

at least, I thought he, admits to wanting a woman at home who will be a wife and a

mother” (TFN 22). But later, she realizes that she cannot cope with his attitude towards

marriage and her loneliness. One can see the total boredom that assails her in such a life

when she says that she spends “hours every afternoon opening dusty rooms and

cockroach ridden cupboards” (TFN 59).

Mahesh does not share business matters with Devi, considering it unnecessary.

He is totally unaware of her loneliness. When Devi asks him to postpone his business

trip he comments ironically “Why don’t I pray to be born a woman in my next birth…

Then I won’t have to make a living at all” (TFN 54). He wants Devi to attend to his

father, himself, to manage the housework and to receive his friends well. Mahesh like all

other men of Indian society wants his wife to be submissive and passive. He interrupts

Devi’s reading and asks her if her mother needed books “to tell her how to be a wife”. He

affirms that he has never met a woman more efficient than her mother (TFN 70). Mahesh

takes married life for granted. But for Devi, it is companionship. She feels “A marriage

cannot be forced into suddenly being there, it must grow gradually like a delicate but

promising sapling” (TFN 49). She wonders how his acute businessman’s eyes with all

their shrewd power really be weak sighted that he does not see that it is too early for

quietness and too soon for the “companionship of habits” (TFN 49).

Devi feels that her education has not prepared her for “the vast, yawning middle

chapters” of her womanhood (TFN 54). She is defenseless against Mahesh’s supreme

confidence and superciliousness whenever she expresses a wish to do something like

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learning to play cards so that she can be with him. When she wants to learn Sanskrit so

that she could understand Baba’s quotations better, he quips “The English translations

are good enough” (TFN 52). When she wants to look for a job he snubs her asking what

she would do “when the baby comes” (TFN 65). Mahesh’s disapproval expressed only

through an inward movement of his lips “weaving a cunning cord around [her] vulnerable

neck” (TFN 56) by saying “this is what comes of educating a woman. Your grandmother

was barely literate. Wasn’t she a happier woman than you are?” (TFN 74). She

understands that Mahesh needs a woman who is subservient and obedient.

Devi’s husband, closing all doors to understanding, attributes her depression,

conflict and discontent to education. This view is shared by most people, who hold that

girls should not go in for higher goals of self-development. They should be married early

before they develop their own will and become less amenable in moulding themselves in

the feminine role based on self-effacement and self-sacrifice. Though Devi cannot

provide him an immediate clear-cut answer, it sets her wondering, if she is a “neurotic”

because she is a lazy woman who does not polish her floors everyday or an “aimless

fool” because, she swallowed her hard-earned education, bitter and indigestible, when her

husband tied the ‘thali’ round her neck or a “teasing bitch” because she refused him her

body… (TFN 74). This shows clearly how easily a modern educated woman is found

fault with. The women of earlier times accepted everything silently, unquestioningly and

called their miserable life the work of Fate. But when the modern educated woman like

Devi expresses her ideas, or wants to utilize her education either for securing

employment or to do something worthwhile or protests when injustice is meted out to

her, she is branded unwomanly or a feminist.

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Alone in the house with Mayamma, the old house keeper and Baba’s orphaned

books after his departure for New York, Devi says, “but a wife needs her husband, not

her father-in-law Or her father” (TFN 68). Her sense of futility overwhelms her as both

the men she had trusted and loved, her father and father-in-law, escape from the “tortured

grip of pain, loneliness, and guilt” (TFN 84) by dying and her gentle mother-in-law by

fleeing the house in search of God, long before her arrival.

Her freedom being thwarted, the gaping emptiness threatening her very existence

makes her think marriage to be a sacrificial knife hanging few inches above her neck

threatening to torment her at any moment. In a forsaken and longing attitude she thus

expresses, “I thought the knife would plunge in, slit, tear… Instead the knife draws a drop

at a time… the heart I have prepared so well for its demands remains untouched,

unsought for” (TFN 54). Mahesh has been a polite stranger since their wedding. He is

totally detached and views marriage as a necessity, a milestone and a gambling.

She ruminates more often about her situation and the necessity to remain

dependent on a man who cares not for her feelings: “I am a wooden puppet in his hands.

I stand by him, a silent wife, my wet sari clinging to me like a parasite… (TFN 83-84).

She does not show much interest in bearing a child for Mahesh but all the same finally

she accepts to go to the doctor for a check up. Devi reflects with frustration, “now I am

really a woman: a mother in my receding past, a husband before me. I must follow his

self-contained foot prints, with the clumsy feet that stumble at sharp edges and curves”

(TFN 84). This throws light on the plight of most educated women whose confidence

gradually gets reduced after marriage. Like Margaret in Ladies Coupé she too makes

many compromises in order to keep up the semblance of a happy marriage.

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Devi often dreams of a passionate, understanding husband to whom she bears

many healthy children. She says “I dreamt often of a god-like hero, a hero who flew

effortlessly across the night sky, and who guided me gently when he saw my own

desperate desire to fly with him” (TFN 46). She expresses her desire to bear children for a

man who would be loving and sharing, passionate and understanding, though she is not

interested in bearing a child for Mahesh. The novelist, through this, brings out the

woman’s desire for companionship and equality. Unlike the radical feminists, she does

not think of any biological revolution. For as Ruthven says, “In order to give women

more opportunities, it is not necessary to tamper with their biological nature but to

change the patriarchal construct of woman” (37).

Devi’s nagging and disturbing thoughts reveal the predicament of an educated

woman sacrificed at the altar of marriage. While she tries to resign herself to her

“precious dungeon” (TFN 74) her inner organs and tubes begin to stray as a mark of

rebellion denying Mahesh’s much sought after fatherhood. Mahesh as depicted by Githa

Hariharan, carries the characteristics of the chauvinistic society and hardly bothers about

his wife’s emotional needs. Whenever he comes back from long tours, he asks usual

questions about domestic affairs, spends a night with Devi and makes her more desperate

and alienated. She thus expresses her state with anguish, “I am alone, I listen to the rain

and the gulmohar all day…The long afternoon stretches before me like an endless,

pointless road… my hands ache with restlessness, my tongue is parched with lack of use”

(TFN 79).

Devi’s initial efforts to strike a bond with her husband bear no fruit and she

begins to withdraw into silence and isolation. In fact, Mahesh seems totally insensible to
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the possibility of Devi possessing individuality or a personality that needs to express

itself in a role away from that of a wife. Gradually Devi realizes that their natures are

quite different. Devi wants to flee from the caged confines of an incarcerated domestic

life in order to find a new identity for herself, a new mooring for her fugitive self. In a

way, the crisis which Devi and Mahesh face is the crisis that every family which follows

the patriarchal norms, has to experience at some point or the other.

The manifestation of the crisis may differ from family to family, so may the

response of individuals. Mahesh repeatedly hurts Devi’s individuality and self-respect

and this creates a deep feeling of resentment in her. A close examination of the relation

between Devi and Mahesh doubtless proves that the communication breakdown and the

incompatibility are the key factors that widen the gap between them. An effort to

understand the source of family imbalance reveals the failure of intra family

communication as a major cause for this splintering. In both the cases, the age old

customs, rituals and mantras that glorify marriage and companionship are practically not

put to use.

A marriage of convenience can be as disastrous as an arranged marriage. If two

individuals belonging to the same community, religion, culture fail to sail together

happily, the relationship sealed between two different communities runs the risk of being

even more fragile. This is what happens in the case of Ammu in The God of Small

Things. Under such conditions, the girls receive blows from both husband and parents.

Such marriages rarely get parental approval in a traditional Indian set-up like in the

Ayemenem family. In Roy’s fictional world, man and woman remain islands. They are

parallels because their relationship lacks mutual love, understanding and adjustment. This
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is very much the case of Ammu. She hopes that her marriage with Baba would give her

the comfort, affection and love that was lacking in her parental home. She leaves her

parents home and enters into another to be independent.

But Ammu receives no warmth or affection from her husband Baba. Inspite of

having a decent job, his family faces enormous problems because of his drinking habit.

Apart from this, he has other vices like telling lies, behaving boorishly, cheating,

torturing, badgering and so on. Ammu gets disillusioned after her marriage when she

learns of her husband’s alcoholic deviousness. His usual habit and pleasure is to swindle

her. Increasing rifts and use of falsehood widen the distance between the couple. In the

planters’ colony where her husband is employed, her smartness and new fashioned

activities raise the eyebrows of others. On account of Chinese aggression of India in

October 1962, planters’ families had to evacuate Assam. Ammu leaves for Calcutta but

on the way she gives birth to twins in a hospital at Shillong. While she writhes in labour

pain, her husband is found sleeping on the corridor of the hospital in an inebriated state.

His behaviour in such a critical condition only aggravates her mental tension and bitter

feelings. She finds in him lack of any concern for her and the children.

Thus, even when she gives birth to twins in a hospital at Shillong, she receives no

help from her drunkard husband. His drinking habit becomes vigorous in the loneliness

of the tea estate when Ammu and children are away after delivery. Even after they come

back, his violent treatment continues whenever he is in an alcoholic stupor. The treatment

that majority of Indian women receive at the hands of their husbands is shown in the

following lines by Arundhati Roy. “The Kathakali men took off their make-up and went

home to beat their wives” (GST 236). With make-up on “he tells stories of the Gods, but
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his yarn is spun from the ungodly, human heart” (GST 230). This reveals the hypocritical

attitude of men. Baba’s bouts of violence do not even spare his little children. And yet

Ammu puts up with all this mutely. Ammu realizes that she had actually fallen out of the

frying pan into the fire. Her disappointment becomes unbearable when her husband,

suspended from his job for alcoholism, sought to bargain by providing Ammu for his

boss, Mr. Hollick, the English Manager of the tea estate. Mr. Hollick suggests that he go

on leave and “Ammu be sent to his bungalow to be looked after” (GST 42). Her refusal

aggravates physical and mental torture. Her husband “grew uncomfortable and then

infuriated by her silence. Suddenly he lunged at her, grabbed her hair, punched her and

then passed out from the effort” (GST 42). Her hasty marriage soon reveals to her the

darker side of his life. She realizes the marriage is no guarantee for happiness.

In defying the authority of the mother/parents, the girl/daughter sometimes

plunges into a relationship overlooking so many negative aspects in the partner. In trying

to balance this, she sheds bits of herself each day so that the balance is not bent on one

side and she is not accused of the decision she has taken for herself. Ammu realizes the

futility of their relationship. The Pakistan War that broke out heatened and accomplished

the process of segregation. The force that has destroyed Ammu’s marriage, is the age-old

Indian social convention that the wife is only a part of the goods, articles, a man owns.

This belief is as old as the The Mahabharata. We can see Yudhisthra pledging Draupadi

his wife on losing everything he owns in a dice game with the wicked Duryodhan. In

Baba, Ammu’s husband, one can see the modern version of Yudhishtra, willing to

prostitute his wife to save his job. Only in rituals and mantras equality is maintained. The

novel depicts Arundhati Roy’s concern with the social predicament of women in India.
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Women who yearn for happiness rarely acquire it. Roy undoubtedly exhibits her

capability of probing deep into the human psyche by exploring vast tracks of human

experience in a unique manner. She also shows an awareness of the need of

understanding man and woman beyond the simple biological relationship. The novelist

follows the protagonist from her childhood days to adolescence, to the experience of

marriage to a loving and caring mother to an estranged wife to a rebel who challenges the

hypocritical moral standards of society. She shows how in the absence of meaningful

relationships the individual suffer. The individual is unable to forge long term

relationships.

Though Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupé centers around the principal character Akila

and her quest for identity through the lives of five other women characters, it gives an

insight into the expectations of married women, the choices they make and the choices

made for them. The third part that is taken for study unfurls the story of Margaret

Shanthi. Margaret Shanthi is another example of how women are dominated by male

power. She is a chemistry teacher married to Ebenezar, the principal of the school she

works in. Though married to the love of her life, Margaret too suffers from the agony of

an unhappy marriage. Anita Nair pictures male supremacy through her portrayal of Ebe,

Ebenezar Paulraj who “listens to no one but himself” (LC 99). Ebe never shouts, loses

his temper or raises his voice but bends everything according to his will by his stoic

silence.

Margaret’s frustration with marital life, finds manifestation in several incidents.

After a few years of their married life Margaret realizes that Ebe treats the house like a

hotel. He expects everything to run smoothly without having to do anything. Food on the
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table, laundered and ironed clothes for him to wear, beds made, and shelves dusted, all by

invisible hands. He never bothers to appreciate how well everything is managed.

Margaret, true to her feminine virtues, plays the role of an ideal housewife, but the role of

a wife restricts, rather circumscribes her self-development – firstly by taking away her

freedom of thought and expression and secondly by denying her the scope of giving free

play to her potentiality. Margaret learns to suppress her own wishes and act according to

her husband’s. She attends all the things apparently intended to please him.

From an ambitious and brilliant student who wants to chart out a career on her

own, she becomes a dutiful wife to Ebenezar who rouses fear in everyone around him.

Time and again she silences her aspirations in order to be what Ebenezar wants her to be.

She begins to want only what he wants. She decides to become a teacher instead of

working on her doctorate. She cuts her hair and transforms her appearance to please her

husband. She stops going every Sunday to church, eats bhelpuri outside and finally

agrees even to abort her child though she knows that her religion forbids it. As usual he

takes the decisions and, “I let his voice smooth away my fears. He was Ebe. My Ebe.

He was right. He was always right” (LC 109). Being a chemistry teacher she identifies

each individual with a chemical. She classifies herself as water, the universal solvent,

also a solvent that has the power to dissolve and destroy: “Water that moistens. Water

that heals… water that flows tirelessly. Water that also destroys” (LC 96). She has made

many compromises in order to keep up the semblance of a happy marriage.

Ebe has been a strict disciplinarian at school and his students are terrified of him.

Margaret on the other hand is kind and compassionate. Ebe fails to create an ambience in

which Margaret could have space for exposure to various facets of life. Although her
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social and financial status grows, there is no peace for her at home. Her marriage with

Ebe suppresses her femininity and her human demands. She is physically and spiritually

dissatisfied with her husband who takes her for granted and expects her to be submissive.

Margaret is discontented with this pre-ordained role of a woman. She has many choices

but as a married woman, she is left with a few or practically no choice save what her

husband wills and desires. She cannot unburden herself. Her feminine instinct is curbed

and suppressed.

Despite all these, she is reluctant to admit failure and drags on with her marital

life which encloses and imprisons her true self. She realizes that she is married to an

insensitive tyrant who is too self-absorbed to recognize her needs. He is the man who is

capable of changing everything to insignificance, a bully, a narcissistic man. A sense of

dejection creeps into the mind of Margaret and she suffers silently nurturing the pangs of

disappointment with life, especially married life. Even the love and arranged marriage of

Ebe and Margaret seems to be a match between two different temperaments with not

even a common factor in their physical and mental outlooks to bring them to a close tie.

The basic problem with them is emotional and physical incompatibility. This state of

affairs sets the ball of disunity in their relationship rolling which gradually acquires

momentum beyond anyone’s control. Marriage subjugates and enslaves woman. It leads

her to “aimless days indefinitely repeated, life that slips away gently toward death

without questioning its purpose” (De Beauvoir 466). Margaret has surrendered herself to

Ebe step by step, not mainly for love but to avoid conflict. She clings to her marriage,

because she is afraid of failure. Moreover, she wants to show to the world and her family

that her marriage is a success.

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In Difficult Daughters the lack of intellectual incompatibility between Professor

Harish and Ganga leads to the disintegration. Ganga, the professor’s first wife thinks

marriage is a social and religious institution and is happy to take care of his needs. She is

also a victim of child marriage. It had been five years since Harish had seen his wife and

Ganga had been in no position to enforce her claims, as she hardly knew him. She is

dependent, has children and is bound by tradition and conformity. She seems to be

satisfied with her lot in life. Apparently mentally slow, she derives great pleasure in

cooking, cleaning and serving her husband’s friends with expertise and care. She is also

good at anticipating the routine needs of her husband, and has the ability to appreciate her

husband’s finer sensitivities. She could tell from his face how absorbed he was in the

beauty of the sunset. In all her life she had never known anybody “as crazy about beauty

as her husband” (DD 70). The Professor prides himself on his taste for food and clothes

but pays little heed to the fact that the English tea that he loves is made by Ganga.

On the whole, Ganga is quite a competent housewife, a very nice host, a great

cook, a very gentle daughter-in-law, an affable neighbour, a loving mother and also a

very caring wife. In spite of all this care and concern on the part of Ganga, Professor

Harish complains that he has nothing in common with his first wife. The fact that Ganga

has remained uneducated even though she has spent all her life with an enlightened

husband is more a comment on him rather than her. The Professor tries to justify this by

narrating how Ganga had learnt Hindi quite easily but was a complete failure when it

came to English. He, of course, clearly believes that the wife must know English to

become a fit companion to her westernized husband.

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On the other hand, Virmati is an easily impressionable young woman. When she

meets the Professor and listens to him she is all admiration for him. When he tells her

about his illiterate wife Ganga, who is not prepared to learn anything and cannot share his

ideas or understand music, she sympathizes with him. She is convinced of his need for

companionship. Rather insensitive to the needs of his faithful and dutiful wife whose

worth he never realizes, he wants to have Virmati not as his wife but as a woman to

gratify the cerebral spark of his personality. The emotional and intellectual void gets

filled by Virmati. He thus expresses, “There is a void in my heart and in my home that

you alone can fill” (DD 112). Educated Virmati fills the mental and intellectual vacuum

in the Professor’s life. Harish likes Virmati for her fire and self-assertion that is missing

in his docile wife. In the marital life of Harish and Ganga, husband and wife alienation

results from intellectual incompatibility.

All other protagonists have concrete reasons for the splintering of families but in

Sumi’s case, in A Matter of Time there is no solid reason except for an existential cause.

Right from her marriage, Sumi has been a content wife and mother and has willingly

subordinated herself to her husband and daughters. Though Sumi who has never been the

recipient of demonstrative paternal affection, is able to build a relationship of real warmth

and friendship with Gopal. Unlike the other male protagonists in the novels under study,

who fail to build good relationships with their wives, Gopal is not bereft of love towards

his family. He is pictured as a loving husband and a gentle and caring father. Gopal

speaks of his daughters with immense love and then deserts them in their valuable

teenage years. The so-called smooth marital life of Sumi and Gopal all of a sudden gets

jolted because of Gopal’s decision to leave the family. There is absolutely no reason for
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his departure except for his own whim and fancy. He has nothing against Sumi or the

children. He has been so fond of his daughters that he did everything – caring for his

babies, tending them, caressing—them “with joy and passion” (MT 68).

Gopal suddenly detaches himself from all this and Sumi is sharp enough to

observe, “something unusual about him”. She can’t “pinpoint anything specific, just this

odd feeling” that he seems—“disjointed” and “uncoordinated” (MT 8). Sumi sits and

listens in silence when Gopal abruptly expresses his decision to talk to her. Ironically,

what he has to say takes him so little time. Sumi fails to grasp the truth of what he has

said, “the realization that there is nothing more to be said—by either of them—comes to

them almost simultaneously and he goes out as quietly as he had come in” (MT 8-9).

Sumi tries to find out the reasons by analyzing probable motives in his past acts

and utterances. Gopal accepts the traditional Hindu view of marriage where God unites

two human hearts. He also believes that the husband and wife are described as two

halves of one being. But he realizes that he is failing in the idealistic expectations of

marriage. He could not feel himself a sahriday (being one) with Sumi and was getting

out of step with her. Gopal comes to the conclusion that “marriage is not for everyone.

The demand it makes a lifetime of commitment—is not for all of us” (MT 69). Gopal

leaves because he strongly believes that he cannot cope with household responsibilities.

He has an unexplained existential drive and leaves behind a happy family in his quest for

the self. In Sumi’s case, the patriarchal structure has generated the value system that

never questions if a man sheds his responsibilities. Gopal’s thinking is tinged with the

patriarchal thinking that a woman does not have existential problems as she is fulfilled

through childbirth, “For a woman, from the moment she is pregnant, there is an
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overriding reason for living, a justification for life that is loudly and emphatically true. A

man has to search for it, always and for ever” (MT 68).

Gopal’s decision to walk out on her is enough for her to understand that they

cannot get along. She does not find it necessary to question him any further or impose

her views on him. Sumi partly thinks that it may be because of destiny. She knows him

better, especially his sudden whims. Even in the past she had hints that it was always

there in Gopal, the potential to walk out on her and their children. For instance, when

Gopal leaves his job all of a sudden she did not force him to stick to his job for the sake

of money. He said, “I could no longer stand in a position of authority before my students”

(MT 27). Only he could give such an impossibly metaphysical reason for resigning his

job. Though the others try to find reasons for what he has done she knows that the reason

lies inside him, the ‘reason is him’.

Outwardly, like in the case of Janu, there is nothing wrong. Sumi had never

received scolding or beatings from Gopal that could subscribe to some reasons for his

sudden departure. Infact, others are surprised at Sumi’s coldness in not attempting to find

reasons. They are not ready to believe that she has not asked him anything. She says,

“even if it had been possible, if I had asked him ‘why’ would I have got an answer I

could have made sense of?” (MT 27). Sumi, like the other women in the family, do not

blame her husband for being so irresponsible, but on other hand allow him to lead the life

he wanted to live. She tells him, “Then you began to move away from me. I knew exactly

when it happened. And I knew I could not stop you, I could do nothing. When you left, I

knew I would not question you, I would just let you go” (MT 221).
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Ironically, even Gopal himself does not know why he left. He says that he heard

a voice. But it is not a spiritual call to leave the family in search of God. Further he says,

“It’s a kind of illness, a virus, perhaps, which makes me incapable of functioning as a full

human being, as a husband and father…” (MT 41). Towards the end, when Aru his

daughter, questions him for his act of leaving, he seems to frame the right reason. He

says he was frightened of the emptiness within him. He was frightened of the

overpowering emptiness that could ruin everyone. It is the desperation of a drowning

person that makes everyone clings to other humans. In fact all human ties are only a

masquerade. That is the real reason why he walked away from Sumi, from his daughters.

It is not even clear if he has achieved a solution to his problem or has arrived at a greater

understanding.

It is, however, quite apparent that he has relished every moment of his life as a

husband and father. It is evident that there are no obvious reasons for Gopal walking out

on his family. It is this paradox which shrouds the reasons for his behaviour. According

to Subhash K.Jha, Gopal is “not our average cardboard cad but a distressed guilt-ridden

husband and a father baffled by his own sudden withdrawal from active domesticity”

(Knotty 54-55). The fear of being unable to fulfill his obligations as a husband and a

father coupled with an intense loneliness and a feeling of isolation from his wife and

daughters has compelled him to choose what could easily be termed a coward’s way out.

Gopal’s desertion is similar to that of, Janu’s husband Suresh, in Ancient

Promises. Suresh in order to escape from responsibilities like taking care of his wife,

children, family, escapes in the guise of business tours. According to the Indian

scriptures, a person could renounce the world only when he has discharged all his
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responsibilities towards his family. It is premature on the part of Gopal to leave his

family when his commitments to them are yet to be fulfilled. So, in the case of Gopal, it

is more of shirking responsibility than of Sanyasa. His abandoning the family is not the

result of saturation in the world life. His is more a withdrawal in pain than a renunciation

due to contentment. Shashi Deshpande in an interview said, “Possessions tie me down. I

don’t want anything, they are a burden” (Rao A conversation 134). Gopal feels this very

strongly with regard to relationships.

Like Mahesh, Suresh, Ebe, Baba, Harish, the counterparts of Devi, Janu,

Margaret, Ammu and Virmati respectively, Gopal too has his own conception of

marriage. In general, marriage for the male protagonists in the novels is a matter of

convenience, gamble and commitment. They fail to strengthen their respective families

by understanding and adjustment. They stand aloof by their nonchalant attitude fused

with a lack of commitment. All this creates great gulfs inside their families. The

complications in the relationship are often the result of heterogeneous sensibilities,

outlooks and psychosexual complexities of men and women.

Love, which is the foundation stone of all other relationships, remains only an

unfulfilled dream or just a fleeting experience for most of the characters under study.

Love is not at all the point of consideration in their marital life. Janu and Suresh, Ammu

and Baba, Devi and Mahesh, Margaret and Ebe, Harish and Ganga, Sumi and Gopal all

accept marriage as a form of biological need, no more, no less. Familial ethics remains in

conflict with the emotional urges of the individual. Marriage which seals the bond of

love turns out to be a social obligation that has to be lived through for the generation
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which vows by the family code. However, the succeeding generation is governed by no

such rigid ethical code and finds a loveless marriage a burden fit to be shrugged off.

The hunger for love and the theme of alienation dominates both Difficult

Daughters and The God of Small Things. Virmati expects love and affection from her

mother. Her attempts to spin web of love through her devotion is met by exasperation by

her mother. Surrounded by clamorous children and with love denied, Virmati begins to

value her privacy and freedom. Her education brings about an ideological change in her

and transforms her. The Oxford-returned Professor Harish who finds little to share with

his uneducated wife is unable to resist the charms of Virmati, innocent and hungry for

knowledge and love. Virmati is young, adolescent and vulnerable to the psychological

problems of her age. The Professor on the other hand is mature and offers a little bit of

himself in the form of lending books, pressing upon her to stay for tea, giving her

admiring looks and so on.

Although engaged, for Virmati her fiancé is a “shadowy figure waiting in the

wings to marry her” (DD, 35), whereas the Professor is right there, before her eyes. Tired

from the day-long drudgery and child-care, the attention of the Professor makes her feel

wanted, loved and this transports her into the world of romance. Her postponement of

marriage gives her the opportunity to study further and thus begins the illicit relationship

between her and the married Professor living next door. The methods by which the

Professor works his way through her inhibitions are the conventional traps used by

lovers. Discussion of Keats’s poetry, Wordsworth’s description of nature, his husky voice

pleading intensely and passionate letters is a new experience for Virmati. It is an escape
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from the mundane life; love changes her life with newness, freshness and excitement.

Her need for self-affirmation is aggravated by his love.

Even though Virmati is aware of the Professor’s position and status, she decides

to marry him, as he is “a successful academic, a writer of books, a connoisseur of culture,

a disseminator of knowledge” (DD 144) and above all she had an idea that she “would be

lucky” if she found a husband like her father (DD 144). For Professor Harish, Virmati is

an enigma, a riddle and an essential partner for his physical, emotional, intellectual and

spiritual satisfaction. While the Professor’s love for Ganga is sacred and unsatisfactory,

with Virmati it is platonic and based on intellectual understanding. The irony is that the

Professor enjoys the best of both the worlds; in Ganga he has a servant who keeps his

house tidy, rears his children, while Virmati fulfills his need for intellectual

companionship, which his homely and uneducated wife cannot. While in other characters

disintegration occurs because of lack of compatibility and love, in Virmati’s case

disintegration occurs because of love.

As in the case of Virmati, the reason for Janu’s conflict in Ancient Promises

before and after marriage is love. Janu, too, like Virmati and Devi, is not ready to

disappoint her family members by giving importance to her desires. The war between

love and family ends up with family winning. Thrusting down her love for Arjun, she

tries to get used to the new bond after getting married as she will get used to “giving up

her studies, her friends and …” (AP 65). Janu, with a strong mind, erases her ancient

promises, her love.

Having entered the new fold wholeheartedly, naturally she expects to be loved by

her in-laws and her husband. But unfortunately she receives love and affection neither
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from her husband nor from her in-laws. Even on the day of their union, she feels the

absence of love. In her own words, “when it finally came with an ungraceful conjoining

of arms and legs, clothes and sheets” she “greeted it with the stoic sense of one of those

things that had to be done”. It was like a visit to the dentist, where things went on in

intimate parts of you” one that one “could neither see nor control”. Love didn’t “seem to

play much of a part” (AP 87). She even feels awkward to be kissed by a mouth that had

not had very much to say to her to that point. All this only makes her feel for sure that

she, “was no nearer either to feeling loved or to waiting to love” (AP 87). This clearly

pictures the absence of love and intimacy between Janu and Suresh. Janu is disgusted

with their mechanical relationship.

It is a general notion that all brides in India “cried and then stayed and loved and

got loved”. (AP 94) Reciprocation of love or mutual love strengthens their love and the

lack of it paralyses their lives. Even Janu’s parents had hoped that she could be “drawn

easily into the loving fold of this new family” (AP 95). Each and everything in her new

home creates the feeling that her marital home is an empty loveless world. In the case of

Janu, inspite of Kerala’s proud old matrilineal tradition, patriarchy reigns supreme in the

Maraar household. Adverse attitudes of the family members, hostile social traditions and

backgrounds make these maladjustments a great menace.

Like Janu, Devi in The Thousand Faces of Night to feels the absence of love in

her marital life. The vast, empty, ancestral house surrounded by a large, wild garden

becomes a focal point of her existence. Her husband, always on tours, remains a

shadowy stranger, who views marriage as just another necessity. While Devi pines that

her heart remains untouched and not even sought for, Mahesh feels thankful that “Indians
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are not obsessed with love” (TFN 55). This lack of intimacy and love continues even in

the act of wishing for a baby. Mahesh says, “Let’s have a baby… There’s no reason to

wait. I want you to have my baby” (TFN 74). And after a night of purposeful love-

making he left the next morning on a month long tour” (TFN 74). Devi, exasperated,

says “this then is marriage, the end of ends, two or three brief encounters a month when

bodies stutter together in lazy, inarticulate lust” (TFN 54). On failure of her expectations,

she shrinks into being a cipher. Her efforts to play the traditional wife are thwarted by

Mahesh’s taciturn attitude to love and marriage. The relationship between a wife and

husband is expected to be intimate and enduring. But this relationship between Devi and

Mahesh is an epitome of failure, full of disappointment and depression. The reason

behind this is lack of love. The disgust of living with a man who does not love the

woman the way she expects him to, is a burning problem, the educated woman has to

face in the contemporary society.

Ammu in The God of Small Things, never experiences love and security at home.

Bitter childhood experiences have created rough edges of a rebel in her. She starts her

new life with her husband with great expectations. A drunkard for a husband can be as

tormenting as a male chauvinist. Her dreams are shattered because of the absence of

love. In this loveless marriage, there is nothing for her to cling on. History repeats itself

when Ammu too like her mother, suffers beatings from her husband. She however fares

better than her mother. She refuses to be a silent sufferer and retaliates violently when

her husband is willing to send her to his English boss. The final outcome is that she

leaves her husband and returns unwelcomed to her parents in Ayemenem, “to everything
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that she had fled from only a few years ago. Except that now she had two young

children. And no more dreams” (GST 42).

The magical and mesmerizing word ‘love’ proves to be a poisonous one in

Margaret’s life in Ladies Coupé. She is quite blind to the real nature of Ebe as she is

madly in love with him in the beginning. In the first year, her love for Ebe works like a

solvent. She is drunk with love and longs to be with him and to please him. It is as if

someone had “clamped a gas mask” over her face and made her inhale chloroform” (LC

104). After the initial euphoria of marriage, Margaret understands that her husband is not

the knight in shining armour that she expected him to be. On the other hand, he is

insensitive, a self obsessed despot who does not care much for his wife. Slowly she

realizes the real impact of love and says, “Love beckons with a rare bouquet. Love

demands you drink of it. And then love burns the tongue, senses... Love separates reason

from thought. Love kills…”. According to Margaret love is “methyl alcohol, pretending

to be ethyl alcohol” (LC 111).

Ebe’s every action gradually transforms Margaret’s love into hatred. Both begin

to maintain a separate domain. Margaret has a special chemical way of identifying and

associating each individual with a chemical. To her, after a minute of talking with

people, they cease to be a person, they become “a chemical” whose “nature has been

identified recorded and reckoned with” (LC 118). So according to her, Ebe is oil of

vitriol – biting, scathing, colourless, explosive, given to extremes, capable of wiping out

all that is water. She had dreamt of a blissful life with Ebe, but “just as ferric oxide turns

to rust, so it was with hope” she had for their life together (LC 100).
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Slowly Margaret realizes that between them there is more hatred than love. She

says, that for so long, she has been wondering what it was she felt for him. She did not

know if she loved, hated or was merely indifferent to a man (LC 99). Further she thinks

of all that was good and noble about her life that he “had destroyed”. She thinks of the

baby that died even before it had a soul. She also thinks of how there is nothing left for

her to dream of and the words rose to the surface again: I HATE HIM. I HATE HIM

what am I going to do? (LC 131). But she swallows it down as she had all these years

swallowed her sense of pride. Suddenly she feels “suffocated” by her “marriage” (LC

131). In the beginning her love towards Ebe makes Margaret to accept his indifference.

Later her love marriage culminates in frustration.

Like that of Margaret and Ebe, the marriage of Sumi and Gopal in A Matter of

Time is a love marriage. The magical and overpowering word love has its own impact on

Gopal and Sumi. For a brief period they were part of the world of great memorable

lovers like Romeo and Juliet, Shakuntala and Dushyanta. Sumi says, “We fell in love. I

fell in love with his physical being first” (MT 168). “We want love to last, we think when

we begin that it will, but it never does; It transforms itself into a desire for possession, a

struggle for power” (MT 168). More than Gopal, it is Sumi who is obsessed with love

for Gopal. On the other hand, Gopal has given hints of his leaving even on the very first

day of their marriage. He said, “at any time if either of us wanted to be free, the other

would let go. We are not going to be tied together... No handcuffs” (MT 221). At that

time, the words of Gopal did not matter much to Sumi as she was blinded with love.

All her love and longings to be with him for ever crumbles when Gopal suddenly

departs. Unlike her mother, Sumi is not ready to be satisfied with her status of wifehood.
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Does this wifehood make up for everything, for the deprivation of man’s

love, for the feel of his body against yours, the warmth of his breath on

your face, the touch of his lips on yours … Kalyani lost all this… but her

kumkum is intact and she can move in the company of women with the

pride of a wife. (MT 167)

Kalyani may be contented but Sumi is not, for, a relationship where people think

it is enough, “to have a husband living”, though they may be deprived of love. Sumi

questions: “Is it enough to have a husband, and never mind the fact that he has not looked

at your face for years, never mind the fact that he has not spoken to you for decades?”

(MT 167). According to certain customs, during marriage, prostitutes are invited to

thread a bride’s black beads because a prostitute can never become that inauspicious

thing, a widow. A prostitute is never a wife, yet she is eternally every man’s wife. When

Gopal leaves her, Sumi feels empty. She says, “I feel cold without the presence of Gopal

in my life; sex has nothing to do with it, no, nothing at all” (MT 168). The loveless

married life that causes the wife and husband to drift away from each other results in

total failure. Marriage which is a social institution is thus made a private affair and the

sacred knot is only superficially observed. Even the vows taken at the time of marriage

are probably never properly understood. Thus, it results in the absence of moral, social

or religious force to hold two souls together.

Destiny plays an important role in the lives of the characters under study. Every

one wishes to live the life of ones own choice. But then the choices go wrong leading to

the loss of life in various ways and at different levels. Writers and philosophers have

time and again tried to explore the factors that lead to frustration because of wrong
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choice. The women characters under study are seen grappling with problems and puzzles

of life and being repeatedly defeated or derailed by them. Virmati, Janu, Devi, Margaret,

Ammu and Sumi make choices, take decisions which finally not only fail but prove

disastrous. Apart from lack of love, communication, understanding, emotional, physical

incompatibilities, it seems even Fate has a major role to play in the disintegration of

families.

The protagonists suffer and face death in life. The question that props up is, what

is the reason for the failure of their choices? Is it Fate or Frivolity? Is there any tragic

flaw in their character that leads to their fall? The cause of failure or suffering to a great

extent can be attributed to lack of alertness, and ignorance. Maharasi Patanjali, the great

ancient Indian scholar has firmly asserted that ‘Vivekjam Jananam’ i.e., the “knowledge

resulting from discretion and alertness can help man over come ‘Sarva Visayam Sarvatha

Visayam’, that is, any problem or puzzle of life. And it is the fact the all these women in

some way or the other lack in Vivekjam Jananam” (qtd. in Barche 117). Fate in this

context is not seen operating in the same manner as in the case of Romeo and Juliet or

Tess.

In the case of Ammu, bitter childhood experience and the urge to flee from the ill-

treatment of her father leads her to take a decision that proves to be a wrong one. “She

had had one chance. She made a mistake. She married the wrong man” (GST 38). The

past experience of eighteen long years made her strong enough to opt for anything,

anyone at all. Her acceptance of the proposal from a man about whom she had no

authentic information as such shows her frivolity. But a close look justifies her decision.

Moreover, even well-planned and authentic information-based marriages fail.

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Though her husband is a drunkard, she resigns to herself to her fate mutely. But

she decides to leave him when he tries to exploit her by sending her to his boss for his

selfish progress. May be, we can say that she is destined to be deprived of happiness in

married life. Though Ammu quarrels with her fate, yet she does not achieve anything

concrete. She has too many fronts to cope with – her personal misery and her children’s

upbringing. She has to love them double because they don’t have a Baba. So to some

extent, the strong hand of Fate indeed had designed a rift in her life.

The search for control over one’s destiny seems to be the key theme of Difficult

Daughters. In this novel there is a reference not only to the independence aspired to and

obtained by a nation but also to the independence yearned for but not attained by Virmati.

She seeks human relations that will allow her to be herself and to exercise the degree of

control over her life which as an educated woman, she knows she deserves. She is asked

to accept a typical arranged marriage. But she aspires to a freer life than that offered to

her by those around her. She rebels against that destiny to the lasting shame of her

family. This aspiration is condemned to failure because of her family, Harish, and

because of her own mistakes. She was free not to make the choice she did.

Fate overpowers all Virmati’s choices. She makes many choices and almost all

prove to be wrong ones. The first decision she takes in her life is to pursue studies and

not get married. This excellent decision is the only decision that is commendable. The

rest prove to be wrong ones. Unfortunately, her decision to study is temporarily thwarted

when she falls in love with Harish knowing very well that Harish is married. Both get

carried away by the force of love. At one point, in order to save her family’s honour, she

attempts suicide. As she is not destined to die, she is saved. In order to be free from the
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clutches of the professor’s love she goes from one place to another –Lahore, then to

Nahan. When she is offered the post of principal in the hill state of Sirmaur she decides to

go as “her B.T had left her restless and dissatisfied, hungry to work and anxious to

broaden her horizons. She had a taste of freedom in Lahore, it was hard to come back to

the old life when she was not the old person any more” (DD 167). But the Professor’s

visit spoils all the good name and popularity she had earned there. For, Diwan Sahib the

owner of the school says “It is important to set a good example, particularly because there

is so much readiness to suppose that education encourages girls to be independent and

way ward” (DD 181). Thus all her attempts and choices prove to be wrong. But fate in

the form of Harish follows her everywhere. Despite all strict measures Professor, Harish

Chandra, continues his clandestine love affair with Virmati .Their thrilling game of love-

making and the exploits thereof made them bold enough to be “pawns in the skeins of

fate” (DD 141).

The role of fate in her life is well expressed by Janu in Ancient Promises. She

says “I still couldn’t see why I’d had to give away ten years of my life to Suresh if I’d

really been intended for Arjun all along. Could things like that merely happen at

random?” (AP 299). Right from the blossoming of love for Arjun, her marriage to Suresh

and later when they get divorced, Janu seems to have an intuitive feeling of the role of

destiny in her life. During the first meeting of Arjun and Janu they are drowned in waves

of mutual mortification, “Something packed full of dangerously unfulfilled promises

bursting to get out” (AP 21).

Unfortunately, their love is nipped in the budding stage itself and she is married

off to Suresh. Suppressing her love, she whole-heartedly starts her new life with Suresh.
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Her life seems to be full of broken relationships. Her dream of patching up the rift

through her baby Riya too is shattered. Riya’s mentally challenged state shocks her and

she cries “What new sorrows awaited me mullakkalamma? Hadn’t I attempted to live a

flawless life? Had I done anything that deserved such unending punishment? Why me!

(AP 129) After receiving so many blows throughout her life, she realizes that certain

things cannot be changed like widowhood, indifferent in-laws, a child with a disability,

and so on. She says “Somewhere in my distant past, perhaps even a thousand years ago

I’d done something that committed me to dedicating this life to Riya’care” (AP 160)

Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupé has been called a novel in parts perhaps because the

lives and experiences of six women have been welded together by the novelist with Akila

as a magnet in the centre. Each chapter of the novel is devoted to one of the women’s

stories. The stories of these women give an insight into expectations of married Indian

women, the choices they make and the choices made for them. In this novel, the role of

fate plays a vital role in the lives of Akhila and Magaret as she says “as flies to wanton

boys are we to gods” (King Lear 36-37) they are dancing to the tune of others – parents

and husband. When Margaret’s enduring capacity shatters because of Ebe’s critical

comments, she turns to super critical water. From then on she takes the reins of Fate in

her hands and starts designing not only her life but also her husband’s.

In A Matter of Time, Gopal’s words on destiny clearly prove his strong belief in

fate and also his sudden desertion can be related to the role of destiny. He says “Destiny

is just us, and therefore inescapable, because we can never escape our selves” (26). But

Sumi’s views regarding life, destiny and its choices are entirely different from Gopal’s.

Here too, we can trace the temperamental incompatibility between them. For her, unlike
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Gopal, life is not walking on chalked lines; it is a magician’s bag, full of odds and ends.

“Put your hand in and you never know what you might get hold of a rabbit, a bird,… a

chain of ten-rupee notes… but nothing predetermined? (MT 26). It is clear that Sumi is

not ready to attribute everything to Fate. In spite of listening to stories of Gandhari,

Amba, Damayanthi, Draupadi, Devi in The Thousand Faces of Night level–headed and

does not believe or blame fate for all that happens in her life. According to Hindu

mythology, Gandhari embraced her destiny – with self-sacrifice she blindfolds her eyes.

Devi is not ready to be blind folded like Gandhari. She never blames fate for her decision

to get married. Instead she says, “Was it trust, foolishness or a reckless courage that

made me agree to this intimacy? I felt I had escaped an axe by a hair’s breadth” (TFN

38). Indeed all these mythological women contain great fury in them and have stayed

their protest against exploitation in their own powerful ways and were not ready to

succumb to their fate. Amba is a female avenger, who transformed the fate that overtook

her into a triumph and avenged herself against her offender Bhishma. Ganga who

drowned her children and walked out of marriage when the terms of marriage were

broken represents female determination.

The texts under study, establish unequivocally, how imbalanced familial

situation can lead to the collapse of all familial relations and results in catastrophe for

everyone. Seema Malik observes: “The impact of patriarchy on the Indian society varies

from the one in the West and therefore, the Indian women novelists have tried to evolve

their own stream of feminism grounded in reality. They have their concerns, priorities as

well as their own ways of dealing with the predicament of their woman protagonists”

(171).
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The conventional background in which the women are brought up plays a vital

role in shaping their lives. They live in a male structured society where they are expected

to follow the rules formulated by men. Failure to abide by the rules will put them in a

pitiable state. As far as Indian society is concerned, it follows strictly the Manusmiriti

which prescribes rules to the society. Centuries of tradition and cultural beliefs have

made the Indian woman, the most patient, obedient and loving woman in the world. Her

sufferings, silent screams, disappointments are often not heard. Manju Kapur, Anita Nair,

Shashi Deshpande, Arundathi Roy, Githa Hariharan and Jaishree Misra have tried with

sincerity and honesty to deal with the physical, psychological and emotional stress

syndrome of women. For most women, as seen through the characters under study,

marriage is –a surrender, an escape, a compromise, a social necessity or a matter of

family honour and respectability

Critical examinations of family situations in the novels under study reveal that

most of the families are reeling under several problems. Man-Woman relationships

come to a breaking-point due to a lack of mutual trust and understanding between the

partners. The wrong choices of partners entail suffering and moral degradation. The

family tie loosens due to a variety of reasons. Thus emotional estrangement and

temperamental incompatibility in man-women relationship, a woman’s sense of

suffocation and alienation, their mute miseries and helplessness, inner conflicts and

trauma of ostracized existence are found to be causes for fragmentation of marital bonds.

Indian woman is torn between individual desires and societal expectations. The above

analysis makes it obvious that the woman is striving for an ideal relationship.

In an indirect way, the novelists focus on those so-called small things which, if
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not properly taken care of, corrode the peace and bliss of married life which ought to

receive sufficient care and skillful handing, other wise life becomes strained and stormy.

The marital discourse within the novels moves within varying aspects of dominant

ideology. The six novelists have provided insights into many aspects of marriage as an

institution. The discord between partners leads to further degeneration among family

members. The consequences of disintegration will be the focus of discussion in the next

chapter.