Yuanyang Refuses the Marriage

In a great house like this one the maids are bought property. They cannot leave, they cannot marry whom they choose, and if a master of the family decides he wants one of them as a concubine, that counts on paper as a promotion — she moves up from servant to something like a junior wife. There are only two ways out of such an order: become a nun, or die.

Yuanyang (Yuānyāng) is the personal maid of Jia Mu (Jiǎ mǔ), the old matriarch who rules the family and cannot get through a day without her. The man who has decided he wants Yuanyang is the matriarch's own eldest son, Jia She (Jiǎ Shè) — old, white-bearded, with concubines in his rooms already. He does not go and ask for her himself. He sends his wife, Lady Xing (Xíng fūrén), and after that he sends Yuanyang's own brother.

Everyone in this story is certain of the same thing: that a girl in her position is not asked, she is told, and that she will be grateful. Nobody has thought to find out what Yuanyang wants. She is about to tell them, in front of the whole room.