Shashi Dehpande’s novel The Dark Holds No Terrors deals with the theme of gender bias, marriage and the psychological problems faced by the doctor heroine Saru, earning not only the bread but also the butter for the family. Sarita remembers and resents the gender discrimination made by her mother between herself and her brother .Hence her relationship with her mother gets strained. Her intercaste marriage with Manu becomes a failure and she turns to her parental abode with the heaviness of heart. Her father mentally prepares her to face the situation and not to run away again . She faces the world and her husband again asserting herself as a wife ,mother and daughter. Deshpande makes it clear that a woman’s life is her own and she must reorient herself as an assertive woman to face the trials of life.

Gender bias , Marital problems , Psychological problems , Assertion.