Anandibai Joshee - Marriage

Anandibai Joshee was the first Indian woman to qualify as a medical doctor. She was also the first Maharashtrian woman to pursue higher studies abroad. When she received the medical degree in March 1886 from the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania, she was barely twenty-one. Upon her return to India, she passed away in Pune a year later, a month short of her twenty-second birthday.

Born into a Chitpavan Brahmin family, Anandibai was known as Yamuna prior to her marriage at the age of nine. Her husband Gopalrao Joshee, who was much older than her, prided himself on being a reformer and did his best to educate his child bride. This stance won him numerous accolades from his contemporaries as well as the undying gratitude of his young wife, in spite of the many indignities she had to suffer at his hands.