Focusing on relationships between women of different generations in India, this book comprises of narratives demonstrating how each contributor established her own personhood through engagement with a wider kin group.

Did the women portrayed in the narratives find space for themselves within orthodox structures? Or, were they so constrained by the social roles of the greatest importance to their families - as wives and mothers - that ending these roles meant some kind of death? How did their lives mould those of the narrators of these life histories?

Showing that women need not always be seen as victims, these are stories of women who found strength, success and independence from the inspiring lives of their mothers and grandmothers.