3 ideas
Tarini Bhavan, founded by the widow Dinatarini, combines a girls' school, a shelter for destitute and abused women, and a nursing and caregiving service under one roof. Because it houses, educates and employs women, it replaces the economic and social functions of the patriarchal household. That lets its residents survive outside marriage rather than merely enduring it.
The novel places Hindu, Muslim and Christian women side by side in one community. It argues that women's common experience of abandonment, cruelty and dependency within marriage is a stronger basis for solidarity than communal identity. Cooperation across faiths is presented as practical necessity, maintained through shared work and mutual care rather than doctrinal agreement.
A woman's ability to say no to a husband depends on whether she has education, work and shelter of her own. Seen this way, marriage often persists because the alternative is destitution, not because it is chosen. Siddika can refuse Latif because the institution has given her a livelihood and a purpose that do not depend on him.