Agency Or The Age Of Marriage: A Study Of Female Characters In Githa Hariharan’s The Thousand Faces Of Night

Abstract

The present paper is written in the backdrop of the new legislation that specified women’s legal age of marriage in India as 21 and the debates it raised. The paper basically takes the view that women’s liberation is not tied with her legal age of consent or educational qualifications alone. By analyzing three female characters of the novel The Thousand Faces of Night by Githa Hariharan, it argues that women’s liberation is a question of women gaining agency. The first part of the paper gives a brief description of the ongoing debate about the legal age of marriage for women. The second part of the paper is an analysis of the three major female characters of the novel The Thousand Faces of Night. These three characters are the female protagonist Devi, her mother Sita, and the female servant Mayamma. All of them have made sacrifices for their families and lost their own selves. Based on the analysis of these characters, the paper argues that education or the legal age of marriage alone cannot provide the circumstances for women’s liberation. The real issue is women gaining agency. The paper makes the conclusion that unless and until women gain agency, their struggle against patriarchy and the patriarchal family will be incomplete.