In Chap. 1 , we discussed the complexity surrounding poverty as a process and noted that old-age poverty is the accumulation of challenges and deprivations a person or group of people experience over time. The ensuing analysis applies that perspective to the women’s lives before they became old. It emphasizes the confluence of gender, cultural imperatives, illiteracy, and rural residence to make the point that it is not for the lack of agency that the women ended up poor in old age. Rather, the women’s lives were accentuated by forces they could not control. The intersection of gender prescriptions, cultural imperatives, illiteracy, and rural residence presented the women with life choices that set the stage for the current deprivations they are experiencing. Before we examine these variables and their impacts on women, it is important to familiarize ourselves with the women to understand their narratives.