We see the story from Mao Mao's perspective, so Ruo Men looks good here. But if you consider that it was likely Ruo Men's fault that Rakan was sent on an expedition, it doesn't feel like he acted correctly. He basically stole his nephew's daughter. Had Rakan been allowed to take her, Mao Mao wouldn't be a debt slave being pushed this way and that by the whims of everyone around her. She wouldn't have to worry about granny selling her off, because Rakan could have already paid whatever fake "debt" she somehow owes (despite apparently having been working her whole life providing valuable services).
But here we're told that Ruo Men never intervened to help Rakan, despite knowing that his mistake was hardly his fault alone. It was Mao's mother that decided to seduce Rakan and get pregnant, it was granny that forced her to take clients and didn't check for stds on those clients, and it was Ruo Men that failed at his job and had Rakan punished. But all the blame gets dumped on Rakan while no one else admits to theirs, and he was given no path to atonement either.
I don't think the family disapproved, his family had already largely given up on him due to his inability to distinguish faces, and highly prized courtesans seem to regularly be redeemed by powerful people so there couldn't be that much of a stigma.
