Family Representations in Premchand’s Short Stories: At the Intersection of Social History and Literature

This article examines representations of the family in Premchand’s short stories at the intersection of social history and literature. Historical and theoretical debates on the origins of women’s oppression including the formation of patriarchy, the determining role of private property, and the weight of traditional and social pressures on women become visible in Premchand’s narratives through the concrete experiences of everyday life. Focusing specifically on Bade Ghar Ki Beti, Kafan, Boodhi Kaki, and Beti Ka Dhan, the study argues that the family is represented both as a site of sacrifice, care, and solidarity and as an institution in which patriarchal domination, economic deprivation, and property relations are reproduced. While Bade Ghar Ki Beti foregrounds family honor and female self-sacrifice through the figure of the bride, Kafan reveals how poverty can corrode familial responsibility. Boodhi Kaki interrogates family conscience through old age, care, and kinship ethics, whereas Beti Ka Dhan makes visible the issues of dowry, the father-daughter relationship, and the daughter’s position within marriage and property relations. Ultimately, in Premchand’s stories, the family emerges as a central institution suspended between love and domination, solidarity and disintegration, care and exclusion, one that both reflects and reproduces broader social contradictions.