Peking, Pechili province, China: a Manchu lady with her daughter-in-law. Photograph by John Thomson, 1869.

Two women, the elder seated, the younger standing. The standing one is wearing a ring with tassles. The same women as shown in Thomson's negative number 696. the older woman stares straight into the camera, while the younger one looks away and slightly down. Their attitudes indicate their social position. As Thomson observed, in a Manchu household the mother-in-law held absolute authority over the domestic scene. A Manchu daughter-in-law not only had to serve her husband diligently, she was also constantly watched over by her mother-in-law. If the mother-in-law was a hard-hearted woman, the young wife might spend the first years of her married life in a state of slavery