How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
I was getting more and more worried about her: she moped about, dull of hair and eye, as if the sweetness of life had departed—as indeed it has for a woman who has been abandoned by her husband. (11.1)
Ruku’s personal and cultural views admit that a woman’s worth is largely defined by her relationship to her husband. Ira has been abandoned by her husband, and this defines her worth as a woman. Her husband leaving her affects her own views of herself, and her mother doesn’t do much to ease that grief, likely because her mother understands and believes Ira is actually lessened by this abandonment.
Quote #5
"She is happy with the child," I replied, "but I do not know what is to become of her in the future."
"Always worrying," he chided. "It is a mercy that she is young again, should one not be grateful?"
He was a man and did not understand. (11.44)
Nathan is less burdened by cultural norms about abandoned women than Ruku is. To him, what matters foremost is Ira’s happiness. He doesn’t understand (or doesn’t believe) that Ira’s entire happiness should rest on her worth to a man. It’s hard to discern though, whether he’s unconcerned because he doesn’t understand the full brunt of the culture’s evaluation of women, or because he disagrees with it.
Quote #6
Under her faded sari her breasts hung loose; gone was the tense suppleness that had been her pride and her power. Of her former beauty not a vestige remained. Well, I thought, all women come to it sooner or later: she has come off perhaps worse than most. (14.17)
A woman’s beauty is an aspect of her value. Ruku married below her caste in part because she wasn’t a beautiful woman. Kunthi is notable because of her beauty, and ironically she sells her beauty to prostitution. Kunthi wants food because she thinks health will bring her beauty back. Ruku has never had to worry about her beauty so she seems more comfortable with the fact that beauty will go.