A personal dilemma for Bumillar was the conflict between upholding a woman's freedom to choose abortion while condemning the abuse of amniocentesis by using it to identify, and abort, female fetuses. In south India, she met members of a poor family who said that they had been forced to kill their day old infant daughter because they couldn't afford the cost of her dowry. Infanticide, too, was outlawed by the British in 1870. But many poor villagers recognize little difference, other than expense, between abortion and infanticide. Among other things, Bumillar intends this book to remedy such silence.
Marriage is a microcosm for Indian society as a whole.
An estimated 95 percent of Indian marriages are arranged. Marriage is thus an index of women's status. The most remarkable Indian exceptions to the social norms for women, Bumillar finds, are the off screen lives of Bombay's film actresses. Some other women appear to have done better in their effort to define their own personal and social identities. There is also the exception of Kerala, a state in which birth control has been extremely successful, women's place in society has traditionally been good, and where there is a relatively high ratio of women to men.