"the old people tell us that her husband is more important to a woman than her parents. A woman is with her parents for only a part of her life they say, but she is with her husband forever. He also feels he is the most important. If a wife is not good to her husband, there will be retribution in heaven."

 Pg.634 The Daughter of Han Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai

Word Count: 277

    Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai is of the saddest yet. Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai story talks about women and how they are viewed in a family. Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai's story talks about her life with her husband and focused on the aspect of how he sold his daughter to terrible people who sell women and children to brothels. Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai sold his daughter for opium. Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai's husband is terrible to her and forces her to find her daughter and get her back because he didn't care he was high. Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai's husband also burned her with his father who had cholera and left him to die with her while he was just off getting high and doing what he wanted to do. Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai demonstrated how hard it was for women and how during this era they saw women as almost nothing but extensions of their husbands. If women weren't good to their husbands they would be punished.

    Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai’s quote demonstrates the societal view on women and how women were manadate to live and behave a certain way. Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai’s society saw men/husbands as the most important thing, not parents who are flesh and blood but a husband. Women were not seen as anything other than someone who was there to take off their husbands. No matter what a woman couldn't do anything to upset her husband like in the quote or she would not be looked at or let into heaven possible. Even though her husband left her to deal with his father and sold their baby for opium she still had to be a good wife, loyal, be obedient.