Lady Tan's Circle of Women

A prevailing theme of the novel is the strength that female relationships provide as support, nurturance, rescue, and mainstay throughout a woman’s life. While a woman of Yunxian’s status is raised, as the injunctions of the opening chapter suggest, to please and serve a husband, Yunxian learns early on that the “circle of good” (66) provided by the women in her life will nourish and sustain her far more than her marriage will.

Yunxian receives her first hint at the importance of creating female alliances when she travels to her grandparents’ home. Miss Zhao, her father’s concubine and Yunxian’s chaperone, knows she cannot replace Yunxian’s mother but reminds the girl that she will be in a new place and will need to cultivate friends. The power and strength of this friendship endure for many years, as Miss Zhao steps in later to accompany Yunxian to Beijing and also helps her tend the smallpox outbreak in the Garden of Fragrant Delights. As a concubine who could be sold at any moment, Miss Zhao’s position in the Tan household is only assured by her status as the mother of Master Tan’s surviving son, but her motives are based on genuine friendship, as she risks her own welfare to help Yunxian in her times of need.

Another of the pillars in Yunxian’s circle of women is Grandmother Ru. Her grandmother embraces Yunxian from the beginning and entrusts her with the training that has been passed down through her family of practitioners of traditional medicine. Grandmother cultivates Yunxian’s gifts from girlhood and provides her with the means to be of material help and support to other women. Grandmother appears each time Yunxian is ill, even visiting after death to prove that her influence endures. As her medical mentor and mother figure, Grandmother provides the nurturance, guidance, and instruction that Yunxian needs.

The strongest testimony to the power of female friendship is the way that Meiling and Yunxian save each other’s lives. While their early friendship offers ease for Yunxian’s loneliness and provides a peek at the outer world, Meiling’s friendship becomes Yunxian’s strongest support. Meiling saves Yunxian’s life when she corrects the breech position of her first baby, then tends Yunxian through her postpartum illnesses. She encourages, even demands, that Yunxian pursue her passion and put her medical knowledge to use, and she helps Yunxian develop the book that will become her lasting legacy.

In turn, Yunxian learns the value of loyalty and devotion when she visits Meiling even though her mother-in-law disapproves—Meiling’s friendship is worth the risk. Yunxian saves Meiling’s life after her miscarriage and beating by the emperor’s guards, and she administers the remedies that help Meiling, at long last, bear a healthy son. While Yunxian maintains a pleasant relationship with her husband, she knows she is not of primary importance to him, but she knows she is of the same vital worth to Meiling as Meiling is to her. Their friendship thus stands for the ideal female companionship. While women have supported her throughout every stage of her life, Yunxian reflects at the end of the novel that Meiling has been her truest companion and truest friend, a relationship that continues to bring her joy.