Women in Old China During the 1920’s

“To be a woman, to have a daughter in starvation time was a waste of time enough.” (6)

In the short story The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong-Kingston portrays the lack of value and expendability of women in early 1920’s Chinese society. This is exemplified through the relationships between Kingston’s Aunt and the men in her life. The treatment she receives from her husband, the father of her baby, and her family members reflects the unjust society that existed in Old China.

The relationship she has with her husband reflects a typical disconnected husband and wife connection of the time. In describing their relationship, Kingston writes,

“She was lucky that he was her age and she would be the first wife, an advantage secure now. The night she first saw him, he had sex with her. Then he left for America. She had almost forgotten what he looked like. When she tried to envision him, she only saw the black and white face in the group photograph the men had taken before leaving.” (7)

This quote exemplifies the typical customs of the time where husbands with multiple wives and detached relationships as a consequence were of commonality. Kingston’s aunt’s family poverty forces her to marry strictly for financial reasons causing her to view their relationship with a sense of desperation. This feeling of desperation derives from her “duty” to keep him, which in turn allows him to own her and still act freely with no boundaries. While this freedom that men posses may be socially accepted, women in similar circumstances would be looked down upon and unjustly penalized.

“My aunt could not have been the lone romantic who gave up everything for sex. Women in the old China did not choose. Some man had commanded her to lie with him and be his secret evil. I wonder whether he masked himself when he joined the raid on her family.” (6)

Kingston’s Aunt’s becomes a victim of impregnation and is then turned on by the father of the baby reflecting the exceedingly twisted sense of entitlement that men felt they had to abuse women at the time.

“The other man was not, after all, much different from her husband. They both gave orders: she followed. ‘If you tell your family, I’ll beat you. I’ll kill you. Be here again next week.’ No one talked sex, ever. And she might have separated the rapes from the rest of the living if only she did not have to buy her oil from him or gather wood in the same forest.” (7)

The complete control that he can have on her is used to illustrate the little value women had. A male stranger of that time would be able to have the same power over a woman as her own husband. When this stranger impregnates Kingston’s aunt, he uses her as a scapegoat to take any form of responsibility off of himself.

Her family experiences a castigation of such disgrace that even they being to depreciate her as well.

“In a communal tradition, where food is precious, the powerful older people made wrongdoers eat alone. Instead of letting them start separate new lives like the Japanese, who could become samurais and geishas, the Chinese family, faces averted but eyes glowering sideways hung on to the offenders and fed them leftovers. My aunt must have lived in the same house as my parents and eaten at an outcast table.” (7)

Her family shuns her, and treats her like how most would treat a dog. Enduring the pain of such actions from all of those around her, she feels she can no longer serve purpose for her husband, the father of her baby, and her family. Having nothing more to live for, she kills herself. The expendability of women is exemplified through her families’ decision to pretend that she never existed, after her suicide.

Kingston illustrates the lack of value of women in Old China, by revealing the similarities of the relationships she has with different types of men around her. Family members, and strangers were able to treat women degradingly. Her husband making love to her and leaving her, a stranger destroying her family’s home after impregnating her, and her family erasing the very existence of her life are all examples of the harsh reality of the inequality between men and women of that time.