When we first encounter Rukmani, she is an old woman at home with her family. Having just lost her husband, she begins to look back over her life.She fills us in on her childhood: she was the last of four daughters, and though her father was an important man in her village, he couldn’t afford a large dowry.Rukmani has a simple marriage to Nathan, a poor tenant farmer. She is twelve at the time of her wedding.Rukmani is sickened and saddened by leaving her family, but Nathan cheers her on the ride home. Her heart sinks more when she sees the simple life she’ll have in a very modest mud hut beside a paddy field.