IRUMBAI, INDIA — I was sitting recently with a group of women in the fishing village of Thantirayankuppam. They were members of a self-help group, a cooperative that gathered regularly to arrange loans for members in distress and provide counseling to one another.

K. Kuppalaxmi, one of the leaders of the group, told me that it played a critical role in helping women deal with the vicissitudes of life in a poor, backward village. The biggest problem the group faced, she said, was the high number of female suicides. She had recently returned from a nearby hospital, where one of the group’s members was in critical condition after setting herself on fire.

The woman had been driven to suicide by her husband, Ms. Kuppalaxmi said. He drank and gambled; he beat her. Such behavior, she said, was the cause of virtually all the recent suicide attempts in the village.

It’s a familiar story around here, and it’s one of the reasons almost all the self-help groups in this area are aimed solely at women. Talk to development workers involved in the groups, and they’ll list all the reasons men are difficult to work with: they drink, they gamble, they fight, they bring politics into the groups, and they spend loans intended for the family on alcohol or entertainment.