Arranged marriage The Difficult Conditions of Living under Chinese Patriarchal Culture

who is still a child trying to survive facing her life. Their situation worsens when there is a famine due to crop failure. Snow Flower’s father is not ready to face reality. Snow Flower’s father is a tobacco addict so he chooses to smoke his pipe and ends up neglecting his family. Their house is often visited by debt collectors. Because of that bad economic situation, Snow Flower is almost sold by his father as a little daughter-in-law which is in Chinese society, a little daughter-in-law will be treated worse than a servant. “He thought he would sell me.” “Not as a servant” “Worse. As a little daughter-in-law.” See, 2005: 122. Then, when a woman gets married, she becomes a property of the husband and she does not belong to the father anymore. It is because when a woman is married, the husband gives a dowry to her family. That dowry is like a symbol of the husband that has bought the woman. The one that got the dowry is the woman’s family. Therefore, since a wife is a property of the husband, the husband can do anything to her and treat her freely even do domestic violence. Snow Flower has to experience domestic abused done by her husband. Having sons is a very difficult duty for women who live in Chinese patriarchal culture. A son is a very precious child in a family because he will be a family successor. As May-Lee Chai and Winberg Chai states that “Girls were considered less valuable than boys, as girls would marry and move away whereas boys would stay nearby and take care of their PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI parents in old age.” Chai, May-Lee and Winberg Chai, 2014: 114. Because of such pressure, Snow Flower experiences domestic violence in the form of verbal by her husband. Her husband does not want to have a daughter so he says the harsh words when Snow Flower is pregnant. “Because my husband says it is better to have a dog than a daughter” See, 2005: 163. Snow Flower is not only experiencing domestic violence verbally but also physically abused. Their second child passes away. Her husband is very sad because he has lost a son which is very valuable for the family. When Snow Flower asked where her son was buried, the butcher turned and hit her with such ferocity that she flew back a couple of meters and landed with a thud onto the hard-packed snow. He proceeded to beat her so badly that she miscarried in a violent gush of black blood that stained the icy slopes throughout our campsite. See, 2005: 207 Snow Flower cannot fight back or gets angry for the actions of her husband. She knows her position as a married woman is to respect her husband. As Hsu states, “Women have to respect their husbands, fathers, older brothers, and other related senior males; if they do not, they will find themselves becoming social outcasts.” Hsu, 1971: 209. Therefore, Snow Flower must respect every decision that her husband does even the decision that can hurt her physically. She cannot do anything but should endure the pain of the physical abuse. She passively accepted beating after beating. Her body weakened from the loss of blood from the miscarriage. Her body bruised and tore from PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI the daily punishment her husband rained down on her. See, 2005: 207 This shows the suffering that woman has to receive because of patriarchal culture. As a wife, Snow Flower has to endure the pain of domestic violence because she cannot fight the mistreatment of her husband had done to her.

B. How the Friendship between the Main Characters Contributes to Their

Survival in the Difficult Condition of Living under Chinese Patriarchal Culture Patriarchal system in China is very strong. Men have a way to maintain power and always make a woman into an inferior creature. Patriarchal system is set up so neatly that there is no loop hole at all for women to refuse. Patriarchal culture makes women to have always depended on men. The strong patriarchal system is very visible in the home. As the leader of the family, the father has a powerful control over his family members Tsai in Leng, 1989: 227-228. He looks for money to provide for his family life. A wife has no power because her duty is to be at home to take care of everything related to the household. This ultimately makes the wife to be always submissive and obedient to the will of the husband because the wife does not have the strength in terms of economy. This is also true for daughter. The daughter is not only obedient to her mother but she also must always be obedient to her father and her male relatives. Later, when she becomes a wife, she must obey her husband as the husband is the one who gives her food and clothes. It is apparent here PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI that the women must live in the same pattern from generation to generation. Patriarchal culture has the power to make women always depend on men and eventually makes women can be controlled. Women actually have an awareness of gender inequality. As Humm states, “feminism is the ideology of women’s liberation since intrinsic in all its approaches is the belief that women suffer injustice because of our sexes” Humm, 1990: 74. Women only have the awareness that women and men should be treated equally, but they do not have the courage to refuse the patriarchal system. Women should have courage to face the challenge to free them from the suffering they experienced. As the quotation of Simone de Beauvoir in Bressler’s Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, women should have courage to break what all this time they believed that the position of women in society was not born, but it was created by the society through the patriarchal system. Women should establish their own identity if they want to be free completely as autonomous beings Beauvoir in Bressler, 1999: 182. However, not all women are brave enough to take the challenge because there will definitely be many risks that will be received. There are many women who are not sure of themselves and they have already felt comfortable with their lives by submitting themselves to patriarchal system. They feel fear and doubt that when they make a change as expressing their opinions in public, their opinions are not heard even rejected because it is considered as worthless. This ultimately leaves them with no other choice but to follow the patriarchal system. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI