Here's a book that will make every woman thankful she was not born in 19th century China! Snow Flower and the Secret Fan chronicles the life of two Chinese girls who are paired as laotong - a form of friendship that is meant to be closer than a husband-wife relationship. In a society where women are valued merely for their ability to produce sons, this kind of relationship is important.
In this book Lisa See grants us a peek into what it must have been like for women living in the isolated "inner sphere" of the home. For Chinese women the female world is both a source of great comfort and great strife. The main character, Lily, finds comfort in her laotong, a wealthy girl named Snow Flower. Yet throughout her life Lily is forced to live up to women's expectations. First, she must satisfy her mother who wants her to marry up, thus securing her future. Second, she must please her mother-in-law, the very proper Lady Lu. Most importantly however, Lily must live up to her husband's expectation that she will produce sons. If a Chinese woman cannot bear sons she is relegated to a low status among the women of her household. She is often treated cruelly by her mother-in-law, looked down upon by other women in the household, and forced to accept her husband's concubines.
In a society where women are beat down and forced to submit not only to the men, but just as often to other women, they find one method of release for their thoughts an emotions - the written code of nu shu. Nu shu is considered "women's writing" because it is in a slightly more feminine script than man's writing. Nu shu uses less characters and depends heavily on context. For many Chinese women this type of writing was a valued skill and an art form that the most prestigious young wives worked to master. As Lily becomes more adept in this script she finds freedom. Unfortunately, along with the freedom of literacy, comes the greatest mistake of her life, a mistake that leads to the undoing of her closest friendship.
While I have a decent amount of textbook knowledge on the subject, See's novel helped me to really understand two realities of life for Chinese women. First, women had no choice whatsoever. Their friends and their husbands were chosen for them. Lily and Snow Flower were matched by a local matchmaker. Their pairing was, in the eyes of Lily's mother, a tactical move to advance Lily into a good marriage. Later, Lily was paired in marriage with a wealthy man from a nearby town. Like so many women before her she was forced to marry a stranger and live with his family. Second, women were bound by duty. In the filial constructs of Chinese society, performing tasks out of duty is more important than love. It is a mother's duty to bear sons. If she is unfortunate enough to have daughters it is her duty to prepare them for marriage by binding (i.e. mutilating) their feet. Likewise, a woman is forced to serve her husband and his family out of duty.
As a 21st century female, I found this society extremely hard to comprehend. While I know about filial piety and the low status of women in Chinese culture, it was a rather disturbing glimpse into what it felt like to be a woman. The early part of the book describes the torturous practice of footbinding. Footbinding does not, as many people believe, result simply in a miniature foot. Footbinding is a process by which four toes are bent to meet the heel, leaving the big toe to walk on. Footbinding leaves women with a 3 inch foot, making them severely limited in their movement. Many girls die in the process. The bones break, the feet bleed and are subject to infection and gangrene. And yet, when the painful two-year process is over and they are leave with this 3 inch triangle of deformed flesh it is somehow considered attractive. I have a hard time with that.
This book also addresses what it is to love in this society. Though Lily and Snow Flower were matched to become laotong their love for one another was unconditional. Even during the turbulent periods of their relationship, Lily realizes how much she genuinely cares for Snow Flower. However, the other relationships were purely conditional. Lily loved her mother until she found out that her mother had been scheming behind her back. After Lily comes home from a grueling experience fleeing the Taiping rebellion we see a form of love between her and her husband. Yet, this love is based upon the fact that she is a proper woman who has born sons. I'm still left wondering - did husband-wife relations ever go any deeper? How sad it must be to live in a society where inability to bear sons meant a woman was of low character, where her value was tied to how she conformed to the standards and the amount of love she received was totally dependent on forces outside her control.
Perhaps trying to earn love is part of the natural human condition. I would venture to guess that in most of our relationships there is a level of filial piety. At work, school, church, even among friends we often have to perform a certain way and complete certain tasks to win approval and even affection from others. Yet hopefully most of us have more than one "Snow Flower" in our lives. Hopefully when we come home or talk to our best friends we find a place where duty is eclipsed by love.
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