@TurntAturn i think you dont understqnd and are thinking like a person from this generation....yrs only 4/5 decades has passed amd thr systems are recrntly changing....yes a 5 decades is a mere beginning compared to a system than last thousands....
That family, the mother's family, you are talking about got probably a boy
. That boy is their heir and the apple of their eyes. The mother aka the daughter was just an obkect that they used to have more power. Womem were used as a token/gift and a "spy/observer" that thr alliance would be kept.
If the offspring of the male child, yes female are objects remember, is what both families expected, they will have a good or at.least a decemt marriage and the comtract both families did will be in harmony.
The setting of this novel looks to be in the 60-80s. Whatever happens in developed countries or westerm countries will take time to be implemented in other countries. Such as the right to vote for.women was not given to every women and no all countries passed that law.
With that in mind, now you can see the wrong in the eay you were thinking. I pity those women that are now grand moms. Bacm them many of them didn't have a lot of freedom. It is juat recently that women are becoming an "eyesore" to society aka the big executives, the rich people that already got a system which was mainly.dominated by men