What specifically is being described as stupid and old-fashioned in this passage on arranged marriage?

Question

I'm trying to rhetorically analyze a passage in Amy Tan's novel titled *The Joy Luck Club*, where a character, Lindo Jong, describes her experience with the arranged marriage process. I've included the passage below: >The matchmaker had bragged about me: ‘An earth horse for an earth sheep. This is the best marriage combination’… But even if I had known I was getting such a bad husband, I had no choice, now or later. We were always the last to give up stupid old-fashioned customs. I'm currently trying to analyze the negative diction and ambiguity of this passage. The negative diction can be seen with the words "stupid" and "old-fashioned." The ambiguity occurs with the word "customs," as the reader doesn't know what exactly the customs Tan is criticizing are: are the customs society's suppression of a woman's voice, or society's reliance on astrological signs? I'm not really sure what the rhetorical goal of this passage would be, and what the purpose of the ambiguity is. Any ideas?

Answer 1

I think that this analysis would benefit from more context than just the passage you've included. The reader can't know, from this passage alone, what the speaker means by "customs," though in context, it does appear to refer to matchmaking/marriage-brokering by way of superstitions like astrology or the Chinese calendar (year of the horse, year of the sheep). This custom seems to result in the suppression of women's agency. It bears noting that the speaker of this passage (be it a section of dialogue or a first-person narrator), has her own biases and experiences that color her speech—the reader can't assume authorial intent. The narrator and the author are separate entities.