Marital Discord and its Consequences: A thematic analysis of Manju Kapur’s A Married Woman and Custody

Abstract

Marriage is the foundation of the family, a social group consisting of parents and children. It is the oldest and most powerful social institution that has withstood the test of time in binding people in various relationships such as husband and wife,  mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, sister-in-law and brother in law and so on. In the past, marriages also did the task of uniting two kingdoms. In our country, woman is considered the centre of family which shows how domestic life is interwoven with the life of a ‘woman’. The theme of marriage and the consequences of marital discord find exquisite manifestation in the texts under study. Marriage is one of the most prominent themes in the fictional world of Manju Kapur in which various shades of relationship get projected, evaluated and experienced. In the novels A Married Woman and Custody  Kapur deals with the intricacies of marital discord and its consequences. The collapse of marriage is explored in these two novels from multiple angles making for a nuanced rendition of the situation. The present study under this title also questions the status of married women in a traditional bound social order that sees women exclusively in the role of an obedient and docile wife and a breeder of children. This paper is an attempt to bring into focus the thematic analysis of Marital Discord and its consequences in Manju Kapur’s A Married Woman and Custody.