Vol. 7, Issue 2, Part G (2025)

Motherhood in India has always been linked to marriage, as if it can not exist outside the institution of marriage. Yet, countless women have gathered courage to outlive this norm, raising children against the societal judgement. Literature is a very powerful tool. Indian literature has begun to give voice to these lives that rarely make it into mainstream discussions. This paper examines single mothers in five important works:

Anita Nair’s ‘Eating Wasps’, Githa Hariharan’s ‘Lessons in Forgetting’, Shashi Deshpande’s ‘The Dark Holds No Terrors’, K. R. Meera’s ‘Hangwoman’, and Baby Halder’s memoir ‘A Life Less Ordinary’.

These narratives do not glorify motherhood as sacrifice, the way it is often seen in cultural discourse. Instead, they bring out everyday struggles, finding work, dealing with family shame, holding on to dignity and the moments of strength, resistance and even rebellion. Drawing on feminist theorists such as Adrienne Rich, Judith Butler, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, and bell hooks, the study analyzes and acknowledges the challenges of Indian single mothers.

The aim is not only to read these women as characters, but also to see them as carriers of a different kind of truth, that motherhood does not have to be sanctioned by marriage, and that single mothers are neither incomplete nor marginal. Rather, they redefine what it means to mother, and in doing so, they force literature and society to rethink its categories of family and gender.