The paper deals with the forces that impose womanhood on Indian women in the Githa Hariharan’s novel ‘The Thousand Faces of Night’. Among those forces, patriarchy, ideology and tradition are the most ones. Githa Hariharan believes that, not only women but the lives of every member of a family get affected in one way or the other at the hands of patriarchy. The patriarchal ideology forces parents to repress the freedom of their daughters. The author shows that how these girls try to seek freedom in their married life, but there as well patriarchy bares its teeth. The post-marriage suppression makes women dominant mothers who exercise their authority over their children, mothers who teach the same language of meekness to their daughters. Githa Hariharan shows us that how the daughter comes to know the reality of the world and started understands the perspective of her mother and family. Finally, she embarks on a journey again to throw away the womanhood imposed on her and to search her self-identity. She explores marital disharmony, broken relationships, mother daughter collision, revolt and loneliness as the result of the imposition of womanhood by patriarchy. The characters like Devi, Sita, Pati, Mayamma, Parvati get the lessons of patriarchy from their families, but they also found the strength from the same family structure

Womanhood, Patriarchy, freedom, suppression, self-Identity