Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
Lisa See
From a young age, Yunxian learns about women’s illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose—despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it—and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other’s joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom.
But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife—embroider bound-foot slippers, pluck instruments, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights.
review
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women transports us back to fifteenth century China during the Ming dynasty and tells the story of Yunxian, a young girl who learns the art of healing from her grandmother, and eventually marries into the Tan household where she is banned from practicing from her domineering mother-in-law. The story is loosely based on the life of Yunxian Tan, a real Chinese doctor, who specialised in treating women but was inhibited to only treating those within her circle hence the name of the book. Women were not allowed to study medicine, however male doctors were also restricted from treating females directly so generations of women were taught how to treat female complaints within the family.
Throughout her life, Lady Tan kept a record of the cases she treated, including detailed accounts of the symptoms and the remedies employed to treat the condition. Some of these cases were published as a book called Miscellaneous Records of a Female Doctor which gives a snapshot of female doctors living during the Ming dynasty and the methods used to treat women.
Lisa See’s novel opens with a young Yunxian coming to terms with the death of her mother who had fallen into a depression and allowed her bound feet to become infected. The descriptions of bound feet are particularly stomach churning in this book as See goes into a lot of detail on how they had to bound in a certain way to break the bones to attain the lotus shape. The feet required a lot of care during a woman’s lifetime to ensure they didn’t become infected and the women also had to be careful to keep their balance so as not to fall. The constrictions of the feet also lead to the wasting away of the leg muscles which made the women vulnerable to other injuries. See does her best to explain the cultural significance of foot binding and the attraction the small feet had for men but it was a barbaric practice that effectively crippled women.
As Yunxian goes to live with her grandparents, both medical practitioners, she is taken under their wing and begins her training. She is also introduced to Meiling, the daughter of a midwife, who will become a big part of Yunxian’s life despite the fact Meiling is from a lower ranked family. Another curious aspect of Chinese medicine during this time was that doctors were not allowed to touch blood as it was regarded as being tainted, so practitioners who touched blood were seen as being from a lower rank. As midwives, Meiling and her mother are at the messy end of the birthing process so they can never be classed as a higher rank but their reputation as a good midwife would allow them to interact with higher ranked families and earn them significant rewards. In the same way, a tarnished reputation would have disastrous consequences.
As Yunxian marries, she is dismayed when her mother-in-law forbids her from practicing medicine as her main duty is to birth sons but her failure to conceive a child leads her to fall into a state of melancholy to which she is prone. Renewed contact with Meiling, who is having her own fertility issues, eases Yunxian’s anxiety and she is ecstatic when she falls pregnant. The ignorance of the Tan family doctor almost costs Yunxian her life when she has a complicated birth and Yunxian is further disappointed when she realises she has a daughter. Yunxian’s failure is compounded with the births of two more girls and she despairs of ever having a son.
As time goes on, Yunxian manages to practice medicine surreptitiously as the concubines and female relatives of the Tan family begin to recognise her skills, however her mother-in-law still refuses to acknowledge it. As Yunxian’s fame grows, she is brought to court to attend the empress herself who is pregnant with the heir to the throne but when she returns home she is horrified to learn smallpox is sweeping through the compound and threatening the lives of those she loves. Afterwards, Yunxian finally makes peace with her mother-in-law and is allowed to practice her medicine openly.
The book provides a wealth of detail around the Ming dynasty and offers fascinating insights into the daily lives of the women who were rarely seen outside of their homes. While the author admits she took liberties with Yunxian’s life as not much is known about her life aside from the book she left behind, it is done in a plausible manner. As you would expect, there is a lot of focus on the medical matters which seem to have an holistic approach but sometimes this does mean the relationships between the characters suffer as a consequence. Yunxian’s most important relationships are supposed to be with her husband and children, however they never really come out of the shadows. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed immersing myself once more into Chinese history.
