" Deborah Tannen, in There is No Unmarked Women, describes the meaning associated with every choice a woman makes, from hair, clothing, makeup or accessories to the choices of daily goals and career. Of her experience at a conference, she says, "Every style available to us was marked. The men in our group made decisions, too, but the range from which they chose was incomparably narrower. Men can choose styles that are marked, but they do not have to, and in this group none did. Unlike the women, they had the option of being unmarked." Similarly, Songlian struggles to be unmarked. The freedom of a crazy person to make no decisions is a form of success. Songlian appears dressed in plain clothes, with a plain hairstyle, and no makeup at the end of the movie, removed from the constraints of female decorum. .
Songlian is not a woman satisfied with the expectations of the time; she is not willing to bend herself to the mold of a concubine. However, she has few options to the life she is delivered into; she is bound to go crazy or kill herself. Her society conditioned women to except their fate and become perfect wives. The Master is clear when he tells Songlian that she will be serving him. He constantly reminds all the women about tradition. Some of the women have been there long enough that they remind the others of the traditions they must uphold. Tannen in There is No Unmarked Women, remarks ". I felt sad to think that we women did not have the freedom to be unmarked that the men sitting next to us had. Some days you just want to get dressed and go about your business. But if you"re a woman, you can't, because there is no unmarked woman." This concept was foreign to Songlian, as an educated woman, who saw a place for herself in the greater world. Ebert states, "Each of the four wives is treated with the greatest luxury, pampered with food and care, servants and massages, but they are like horses in a great racing stable, cared for at the whim of the master.