A Daughter of Han written by Ida Pruitt establishes an understanding of the workingwoman in China during the Qing dynasty. The book examines the drawbacks of being a female in China, with Confucian ideals that woman were expected to obey their husbands and fathers and stay in the home. During the life of the Narrator, Ning Lao T'ai-t'ai, we see how she believed heaven's destiny was set out for her; to establish and care for her family. We see a constant struggle with being a woman in the Chinese 19th century as we see Ning look to provide for her family by turning to work, while trying to maintain her old ideals of being an ideal Confucian woman. And we see the tradition of the Confucian ideals change around her as she watches her daughters and granddaughter defy traditional ideals. But as she worked to make her family established, she became a more independent woman herself, by breaking some of the Confucian ideals she held so dearly.
When Ning was just a young girl she learned her place in the Confucian society from her parents, which established her view on the role she should take on. Being raised in a lower-class home, many Chinese women lives were determined early, and they knew what their lives were expected to be like. Traditionally, in the Qing Dynasty, a Chinese woman would obey her parents, stay in the court until she was married, and provide for her husband and bare children. "So we have a saying that the girl with the full head of hair is not as free as the one with a bare head, that is, partly shaved. And at the age of thirteen I was taught to cook and stew "1. This was the way of education of a Chinese woman in the 19th century; how to become a proper wife. When the time came her parents arranged a marriage, and honoring her parent's decisions, she was married off to a man she barely knew, because that was her destiny and role in society. Even though Ning's marriage was tough she could not get herself to leave her husband because it was her duty, and in those first few years of marriage she kept true to the Confucian ideals of women.
