Relationship: Before and After Marriage

Ismat Chughtai, in her story “The Homemaker”, addresses the man-woman relationship before and after marriage and the dominant nature of a husband in an eastern society. In “The Homemaker”, Lajo, with black eyes, pale complexion, bubbly nature and wearing lehnga all the time, is a street girl who does not know her father and mother. In opposed to her name, Lajo meaning coy, she has no shame in offering her body to men. She spends her days in bazaars, flirting with men and her nights by warming up their beds. Most of the men, who sleep with Lajo, fall for her but after fulfilling their desires they throw her away.



On the other hand, Mirza, a respectable shopkeeper, is a single man who meets whores to quench his lustful thirst. Bakhshi, Mirza’s friend, one day brings Lajo to Mirza’s house to work as a maid. Mirza, knowing that Lajo is a street girl and a whore, refuses to let Lajo work at his house. Lajo, who has never seen the warmth and comfort of a house falls at first sight, not for Mirza but for Mirza’s house and stays there despite Mirza’s refusal.



Within a very short time, Lajo wins Mirza’s heart by her charismatic charm, beauty, caring heart, bright and freewheeling personality. One night when Lajo is sleeping, her bare legs, visible from her lehnga, provoke Mirza and he fails to control his lust and eventually finds himself in Lajo’s bed. Sleeping with Lajo for a night, Mirza falls in love with her and marries her.



Here, Chughtai narrates the significant changes in a couple’s relationship after marriage and how the relationship takes an entirely different turn. Everything that seemed attractive and tempting to Mirza before marriage loses its value and charm, just after their marriage. The lehnga, that brought Mirza to Lajo’s bed, no longer seems attractive to Mirza. “Mirza put a ban on the lehnga and instructed her to wear tight-fitting churidar pyjamas” (88). He no longer likes Lajo’s brightness and “freewheeling...