Maji sees abortions as self-evident, as they were sometimes the only way to “save people from dishonour and suffering“ (p.129, l. 9).
Taking a look at the Indian society, it becomes obvious that Maji is talking about forced marriages. As they are naturally often no love marriages, it is possible that married people fall in love with others, what is, in the worst case, leading to an illegitimate child.
Realizing that Maji is, as mentioned above, thinking about abortions as self-evident, this seems to be a thing happening pretty often.
If the narrator would already have known about the sex of her child, this might also have been a hint to the increased number of aborted femal foetuses in modern India due to the (even though already banned) dowries. These are often very high and thus too expensive for most of the Indian families. Also, they may increase in the time of a marriage, getting the spirit of a “supplementary compensation” (Nachzahlung).
