Dominance of Self-hood in Shagun, the Mother: A Study of Manju Kapur’s Custody

Abstract

Marriage as an arranged one is a religious ceremony. A man and a woman who enter into marital life as husband and wife promise that they will live together till the end of their earthly life braving all the seasons of life. Besides, as husband and wife, they are destined to enter into conjugal relationship for procreation as well as continuation of their posterity on earth. The wife begets children from what her husband gives during their sexual relationship and thus both become blessed parents. The wife as a mother lives only for her children and husband. She never entertains any thought other than dedicating herself to the welfare of her family. The husband as a father provides life, comforts and security to his family. But in the modern days, such established conventions have gone into oblivion because of the absence of understanding and genuine love, the lack of conjugal bliss and the dominance of ego and selfishness between the married ones. Both are tempted to go astray in their ways of life affecting the peace and happiness at home. Men hardly divorce their wives but women do on various unimaginable reasons known only to them. The woman who is selfish to the core never worries about leaving children to their fate just because they are born to him. She either remarries or lives in relationship with another even without marriage to satisfy her selfishness. Her womanliness occupies the entire space of her heart dethroning the spirit of motherhood. Whatever happens to her, she should stay back at her marital home as the mother of her children without any conjugal relationship with her husband but she does not do so because her selfishness to quench her personal interest for sex reigns supreme.  This is what Manju Kapur has portrayed through the mother character Shagun in her novel Custody.