Chiraiya and the good woman in marriage
Marriage is too old, too sacred to be questioned outright so we keep constructing more “good women" - Women who fight exactly this much and no more.
Good girls play with dolls. Good girls get their dolls married. Good girls are not even allowed to pause and imagine that marriage could bring anything except happiness — because that would be inviting the devil. Good girls are taught that marriage is happiness, full stop. Good women wake up early, water the holy plant in the front yard, raise their brothers-in-law like their own children, and still call them out when they try to rape their wives. Good women go against their own conditioning for the sake of truth, and on screen that rebellion looks almost noble.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the good woman. She is fierce. She believes in the system that raised her. The irony is brutal: the very system that shaped her was never truly in her corner. In Chiraiya, Kamlesh feels like the woman we are all supposed to aspire to be. She fits in seamlessly when she must, and talks back relentlessly when she needs to. But the question lingers in real life: can a good woman, born and raised inside patriarchy, ever fully realise what patriarchy does to her without losing a part of herself in the process?
A bulbul will always be more convincing than a Kamlesh. Because if we truly stopped and examined the harm patriarchy causes every single day, most of us would also want to live on the fringes of society. How do you look into the face of someone you have known your whole life, acknowledge that he has raped his wife, and still serve him breakfast and wash his clothes the next morning? How are good women expected to simply continue after knowing what the men they love have done? The deeper question is this: do you remain a good woman when you condemn something that even the law refuses to condemn?
Chiraiya forces us to confront many uncomfortable truths, but one question refuses to be answered easily: how do you move on from this knowledge? Because if we strip away the illusion of safety from the institution of marriage, almost nothing remains. And that is a terrifying thought for a society that runs on women’s unpaid domestic labour. So for now we stay suspended in that uneasy middle space. Marriage is too old, too sacred to be questioned outright, so we keep constructing more “good women” — women who fight exactly this much and no more. We hope the message sinks in. We may still wake up tomorrow and hold up the structure for the “greater good,” but at least now we are crying for help. And that, perhaps, is the first crack in the wall.
Chiraiya (2026) is a Hindi web series starring Divya Dutta as Kamlesh, a devoted traditional daughter-in-law whose seemingly perfect family life shatters when she confronts the hidden reality of marital abuse within her own home."
Abou the Author:
Kavya Lakhani
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