It is sad to think that in this old culture, image is everything. I do not mean physical appearance, I am talking about the facade that a person must portray to the world consisting of morals, values, etc. This poor woman was living alone, facing the fact that her husband may have left her, died, whatever the case, and she could not have any intimate contact and start a new life. She finally succumbed to temptation and had become pregnant out of her own marriage. The sad thing here is that her town found it just to vandalize her home and humiliate this woman for having a baby(391). This group of people that thought so highly of themselves decide that day not to take the high route. Instead, they frighten this poor woman into suicide.
The saddest part of this is, the mother in this story who is sharing the tale to her daughter is using this tragedy to portray a message. "Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her can happen to you. Don't humiliate us. You wouldn't like to be forgotten," (392-393). Using threats as a way to warn a girl about not getting pregnant too soon is, of course in my culture, the worst way to go about the situation. In this culture I'm assuming that threats of disowning are common and worried about. This story reminds me of "A Tale of Two Divorces," where women are afraid to act out of the social norms, and end up leading unhappy or tragic lives and endings.
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I agree that women should not have to live in a life of suffering and in exile. Women have always been suppressed and continue to be stepped on by a male oriented society. It is a shame that just because she slept with another man, she had to live her life shunned by all. Luckily in America woman can sleep with multiple men in their life and not be confined to stay together with a man that makes them unhappy.
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