In a desolate part of northeastern Brazil, a young villager named Darlene, left at the altar by the father of an unborn child, decides to set out and seek her fortune in the city. Three years later, she returns with her baby to bury her mother. When the older and, by local standards, well-off Osias offers to marry her, she accepts. She gets up early in the morning to work on the plantation and all the housework awaits her when she returns home, for her husband spends his days and nights in a hammock. The only person who sympathises with Darlene is Osias's younger cousin, Zezinho. One day, Osias decides to have his cousin move in with him and, soon after, Darlene finds herself pregnant again. Nevertheless, this slightly abnormal family lives together in harmony up to the day the young and charming Ciro appears and things become more complicated.