They were in love… Men in love have always loved to talk; woman in love , on the other hand, don’t want to talk, because they know, without even knowing that they know, that once a man really understands a woman he’ll stop loving her.” (pg 505)

There is some sort of absurd standard that women are held to that is simply just not expected of men. Women have to be beautiful and sexually appealing and they need to be able to cook and clean and take care of the household and coming into the modern era, she also needs to be well educated and maybe even have a job. It is not enough to just be a human being for a woman to be worthy of romantic love. A woman must go above an beyond to seem worth it. A man can make a relationship all about him and his own goals, not being expected to support his wife’s dreams. A woman also has to make sacrifices and have reasonable standards for the men in her life. A man can’t be perfect, you need to expect your husband to be flawed but the woman cannot show any sort of weakness to her husband. She herself needs to keep her flaws hidden or else the man has to move on to the next poor woman who may be worth his time. Cuiyuan is an admirable woman with a respectable job and a good education but that doesn’t mean anything without a husband.  A husband may like a well educated wife because it makes him look good to society but if she gets too big for her boots then she is no longer an asset but more of a liability. A man’s comfort, not having to deal with a woman’s feelings, is seen as more important that woman’s right to have her own thoughts and feelings.