Having recently lost her husband in a car accident, Fereshteh faces an imminent crisis. She married for love, her husband having defied his wealthy and autocratic father, Hadj Agha Safta, to marry her. In time his father forgave his son his defiance but not Fereshteh for marrying him. Now she is at the mercy of a stubborn man who intends to take her two sons away from her, restricting her to a weekly visit; he wants to forbid her to live in his household because he still has two unmarried sons living under his roof and sees this as a source of certain and unseemly gossip. Fereshteh protests so strongly that he relents--provided she marry one of her brothers-in-law for the sake of propriety.This proposal pushes Fereshteh over the edge and, with the help of her friends, she plots to escape the country with her children.