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Elizabeth Ward
Professor Lehman
English 101
3 September 2015
Old Chinese Traditions are Harsh on Females
A historical story about a womans life, in which a series of events occur that lead
up to her and her newborn childs death. Kingston tells throughout the story how a
Chinese woman lived back in the day when the Chinese were first immigrating to
California as well as some of the struggles that the women had to face. The main focus of
No Name Women by Maxine Hong Kingston is tradition. She tells us how traditional
values in China are harsher on females, through a personal story. While reading through
the story, it gets us thinking about other traditions and how their females are treated
compared to what is similar or different from how Chinese traditions treat their females.
Kingston retells the historical tale of the aunt she never knew she had. At the very
beginning of the story, the authors mother says, In China your father had a sister who
killed herself. She jumped into the family well. We say your father has all brothers
because it is as if she had never been born (Kingston 227). The author explains how her
aunt caused her own death from drowning in the family well. As well as how her father
has noted his own sister as non-existent because of the dishonor she brought upon the
family because of her suicide. In addition, the author added in how Her husbands
parents could have sold her, mortgaged her, stoned her. But they had sent her back to her
own mother and father, a mysterious act hinting at disgraces not told me (Kingston 231).
In which in Chinese tradition it is fact that the wife is to live with her husband and his
family once they are wedded rather than living with the wifes family. In the story since
the aunts husband was not present, the parents could have: sold her away, use her for
mortgage or loan, or even stoned her to death since they had taken her in as their
daughter-in-law. However they sent the authors aunt back to her own family because of
the disgrace of carrying a baby that did not belong to their son.

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Tradition is defined as A way of thinking, behaving, or doing something that has

been used by the people in a particular group, family, or society for a long time
according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. In the story, Kingstons mother reminds her
that, Now that you have started to menstruate, what happened to her could happen to
you. Dont humiliate us. You wouldnt like to be forgotten as if you had never been born
(Kingston 229). In this case this story shows how stories are reminders or warnings for
females in Chinese families to not go against sacred family traditions because if they do
so, then she will bring dishonor and humiliation to her family name that could result in
the parents disowning their daughter and forget that she was even born. Kingston also
mentions in her story of how her mothers mom would tell stories similar to this story in
order to scare them in hopes of keeping her daughters in line so they would follow the
family traditional customs (Kingston 229). Which goes to the idea of giving fair warning
for daughters to be mindful of their actions and to have in mind the consequences that
would come afterwards.
On the contrary there is a clear difference on what is expected between women
and men in Chinese traditions, in this case women have it a lot more harsher then men.
In Jiangs article, he states that, For one thing, [females] are not expected to succeed a
family. Only male members have their name registered in genealogies (Jiang 1). This
reveals that when it comes to having families, the female is there to just give birth to the
child and to care for the children in a sense while the mans last name is what is used for
tracing genetics for family tree reasons and helps raise the child. That also adds onto the
point that when a woman marries a man she loses her maidens name to take his last
name making the mans last name more dominate. Jiang also includes that, As a result,
either in the family of their parents or in their husbands, women are not considered as
important as their brothers or husbands (Jiang 1). Which makes the point even clearer
that not only in the Chinese tradition, but its culture as well that males are more idolized
in families rather than females. Which could imply that Chinese families do not have to
be so harsh on the males because they would be the least likely to dishonor and humiliate
their family name. This also ties into females since they are deemed to be not that

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important; however, there is still a lot that is expected of them to upkeep in order to find a
wealthy man that would marry them.
The main focus behind Kingstons story No Name Women is tradition, and
through her personal story; she expresses how traditional customs in China are harsher on
Chinese women. The story is to scare females of Chinese families because if they were to
dishonor or bring shame to their families it could haunt them to the possible point to
where a daughter kills herself to escape facing their families. Kingstons story reflects on
how life used to be when traditions were highly valuable, but also a time when women
were not able to have many great opportunities like men had back in the day. In todays
society, traditions are not valued much as they used to be, but for some families that do
still hold tradition as a value, they are not as strict as they used to be.

Work Cited
Kingston, Maxine. No Name Women. 50 Essays. Ed. By Samuel Cohen. 4th ed.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. Pg227-pg239. Print.
Jiang, Sheng. Expectation Differences between Male and Female in Chinese Culture.
Wordpress, 30 Jan. 2005. Web. 9 Sept. 2015.