Laotong

In the story, Lily and Snow Flower are each other’s laotong. But, as each of them marry into their own respective families. With that in mind, miscommunications occur and Snow Flower ends up writing the secret message to Lily, telling her that she did not want to be close her any more. “I felt like a sword had thrust into my body. My stomach leaped at the surprise of it, then contracted into an uneasy ball. Love? Was she really talking about love with sworn sisters in our secret fan? I read the lines again, puzzled and confused. Three sworn sisters have promised to love me. But Snow Flower and I were laotong, which was a marriage of emotions strong enough to cross over great distances and long separations. Our bond was supposed to be more important than marriage to a man. We had pledged to be true and faithful until death parted us. That she seemed to be abandoning our promises in favor of a new relationship with sworn sisters hurt beyond reason. That she was suggesting that somehow we could still be friends literally took my breath away. To me what she had written was ten thousand times worse that if my husband walked in and announced he’d just taken his first concubine. And it wasn’t as though I hadn’t been given the opportunity to join a post-marriage sisterhood myself. My mother-in-law had pushed me very hard in that direction, but I had schemed and plotted to keep Snow Flower in my life. Now she was tossing me aside? It seemed that Snow Flower- this woman for whom I had deep-heart love, whom I treasured, and to whom I’d committed myself for life, did not care for me in the same way.” (220) The sisterly love between Snow Flower and Lily ran deeper than marriage. In our day and age, we would have thought that their relationship was more than just sisterly love, which is understandable because everybody needs someone. In such a strict society, where lily feet, and reputation is important, the friendships that were intertwine in the early years of life are important. As women, they have only each other to lean on. This sisterly relationship kind of displays the other half of the properties that women need in a true loving relationship. In a relationship, ideally, a women’s spouse have two sides, the strong, courageous provider, and the caring and understanding listener.