The Times of India carries a sad story today about a woman from Allahabad who has allegedly killed herself and her two young children.
35 year old Kanti apparently set fire to herself, her eight year old daughter and three year old son following an argument with her husband Shambhunath, in which he instructed her to leave. Locals have also told police that Shambhunath would regularly beat his wife and children on his return from work.
Obviously it's impossible to know the ins and outs of a story like this, but it hardly seems surprising that in situations where women are left with very few options, they are much more likely to be pushed into extreme courses of action.
The story has some eerie parallels with this one in India News Magazine, about another woman from the same district who was being abused by her husband. She killed herself and her children back in May, this time by jumping in front of a goods train. Extreme poverty was given as a motivating factor in this scenario.
But when women would rather kill themselves and their children rather than continue in the lives they are living, surely it's at least worth looking at the factors in their lives that are proving so unbearable.
