The Covenant of Water

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes references to child marriage, suicidal ideation and suicide, drug use, and sexual assault.

In 1900, a 12-year-old girl who has lost her father leaves to marry a man many years her senior. She is a member of a small community of Christians in Kerala, India, and she is assured that her husband follows the community’s traditions. She and her mother cry together before she leaves for her new home.

The unnamed girl realizes that her husband is 40 years old to her 12. She also realizes, to her dismay, that her new home is so far away from her childhood home that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to visit. The marriage broker ensures that the match will be an auspicious one, even as the groom is astonished to see a child. His sister, Thankamma, steadies him and reassures the girl. Child marriages are not unusual, she notes. The two are wed.

The omniscient narrator also recounts the history of the spice trade, as Europeans flocked to the East to procure commodities they could resell for high prices at home. These traders brought with them the Christian religion, converting certain groups of Indians.