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The Social Construction of Concealment Among Chinese Women in Abusive Marriages in Hong Kong
Angelina Yuen-Tsang and Pauline Sung
Affilia 2005 20: 284
DOI: 10.1177/0886109905277614

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10.1177/0886109905277614
Affilia Fall 2005 Yuen-Tsang, Sung

The Social Construction of Concealment

Among Chinese Women in Abusive
Marriages in Hong Kong

Angelina Yuen-Tsang and Pauline Sung

This article presents the findings of a qualitative study of 15 Chinese women in

Hong Kong who experienced marital conflict and family violence. Adopting a nar-
rative approach, the authors found that the women had gradually developed a cul-
ture of concealment through a process of social construction. Individual, environ-
mental, and cultural factors had combined to develop and reinforce their tendency to
conceal their situation and to remain silent. This culture of concealment was highly
oppressive and had a negative impact on the womens personal, interpersonal, and
social well-being. Social work strategies to break this pattern of behavior and to lib-
erate the women from the culture of concealment are explored.

Keywords: abusive marriage; concealment; disclosure; face; social

construction

In Chinese culture, face, or ones image in the public eye, is a central factor
in the determination of human behavior and social interactions (Bond, 1993;
Yang, 1992). The obsessive concern with face has had a significant impact on
the way in which the Chinese handle their private affairs. Because marital
conflict and family violence are often regarded as shameful and disgraceful
to both the victims and their family members, the victims tend to conceal
these occurrences and avoid the public eye.
We conducted in-depth interviews with 15 Chinese women in Hong
Kong who experienced marital conflicts and family violence. Using the nar-
rative approach (Cronon, 1992; Dainte & Lightfoot, 2004; Josselson &
Lieblich, 1993; Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, & Zilber, 1998; Mishler, 1986;
Riessman, 1993; Rosenwald & Ochberg, 1992), we found that these women
had suffered from prolonged emotional abuse and that they had gradually
developed a culture of concealment through a process of social construc-
tion (Gergen, 1999, 2001; Gergen & Davis, 1985; Raskin & Bridges, 2002).
AFFILIA, Vol. 20 No. 3, Fall 2005 284-299
DOI: 10.1177/0886109905277614
2005 Sage Publications
284

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Yuen-Tsang, Sung 285

Individual, environmental, and cultural factors had combined to develop

and reinforce their tendency to conceal their situation and to remain silent.
This culture of concealment was highly oppressive and had a negative
impact on the personal, interpersonal, and social well-being of these
women.
In this article, we discuss the development of the culture of concealment
throughout the life course (Elder, 1992; Hareven, 2000; Hockey, 2003; Pratt &
Fiese, 2004; Riley, 1988; Yuen-Tsang, 1999) of the Chinese women who were
undergoing marital conflicts, using a social constructionist perspective. The
individual, family, peer group, and contextual forces that were instrumental
in facilitating the development of the culture of concealment are delineated.
We also describe the social work strategies that may be effective in breaking
this pattern of behavior and liberating women from its tyranny.

METHOD

We are social work educators and consultants with local social service
agencies who have had a great deal of experience counseling married
women in Hong Kong and on the Chinese mainland. Given the significant
impact of cultural values on human behavior, we decided to conduct a qual-
itative study to understand the cultural meanings that women have
attached to their experiences in marital crises. The objective was to develop
approaches to social work practice that are sensitive to the cultural back-
ground of those who are undergoing marital conflict.
We adopted a narrative approach, encouraging the participants to nar-
rate their personal accounts of their traumatic experiences. Narrative theory
provided us with a framework for understanding how the women inter-
preted their lived experiences and constructed their narrative identities.
Gergen (2001) suggested that a life-course perspective will shed light on the
social, cultural, and historical milieu in which individuals have developed
their self-identities and ways of coping with the challenges of life through-
out time. In our study, we adopted this theoretical perspective to guide our
development of a deeper understanding of how the women struggled
through their marital problems and the reasons why they played a passive
role in dealing with unjust treatment in their marital relationships.
We took the participants into their past worlds and facilitated their nar-
ration of their stories from their own perspectives, using these stories as
texts that were organized around critical events in their lives. The approach
was based on the understanding that

how individuals recount their historieswhat they emphasize and omit, their
stance as protagonists or victims, the relationship [that] the story establishes
between teller and audienceall shape what individuals can claim of their
own lives. Personal stories are not merely a way of telling someone about

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286 Affilia Fall 2005

ones life; they are the means by which identities may be fashioned.
(Rosenwald & Ochberg, 1992, p. 1)

We chose to use the narrative approach in the interviews because per-

sonal narratives are essential meaning-making structures that can be used
to reconstruct the cultural meaning that participants have attached to their
experiences. By preserving, appreciating, and analyzing these narratives,
we were able to understand the process of creation. We did not set guide-
lines for the interviews so as to provide enough room for the women to
speak for themselves. This kind of first-person perspective enhanced our
understanding of the construction of the womens identities and the dilem-
mas that the women encountered in their relational networks and enabled
us to evolve conceptions that were grounded in the womens voices (Yuen-
Tsang, 2002). Together with the historical backgrounds provided by the
women, narrative analysis illuminated the interaction between the
womens experiences and their social and historical contexts, because the
experiences of the respondents are much more important than the objective
facts (Riessman, 1993, p. 3).
Fifteen Chinese women who experienced marital crises were identified
and referred by social workers from three social service agencies in Hong
Kong. These women were either divorced or separated, had children living
with them, and had received the help of social workers at some stage in their
ordeals. Of the 15 women, 4 were aged 25 to 35, 8 were aged 36 to 45, and 3
were aged 46 to 55. Four women were new immigrants from the Chinese
mainland who migrated to Hong Kong after they married, and the rest were
born and raised locally. Six women, including the four new immigrants, had
completed some primary education; four had completed lower secondary
education; and five had completed high school. Those who had received a
lower secondary or primary education tended to work as semiskilled fac-
tory workers or low-paid service workers prior to their marriage, and those
who had completed high school had worked mostly as clerical workers.
Although these women tended to stay in their jobs after they married, at
least half quit their jobs after giving birth to their children, because their rel-
atively low salaries could not compensate for the high cost of babysitters or
nurseries. As a result, the majority of women were economically dependent
on their husbands. The economic recession in Hong Kong in recent years
had further aggravated the employment situation and had deprived these
women of opportunities to seek economic independence even if they
wanted to.
Having identified the women with the help of the three social service
agencies and having obtained their consent to participate in the study, we
conducted the interviews either at the participants homes or in the agen-
cies interview rooms. Most of the interviews took 2 to 3 hr to complete, and
the women agreed to have the interviews tape-recorded. Verbatim tran-
scriptions were made afterward, and we analyzed the narratives as a team.

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Yuen-Tsang, Sung 287

We did not have any preconceptions of or prior hypotheses about the mean-
ing and impact of the participants experiences and preferred to let the
stories speak for themselves.
During the interviews and data analysis, we realized that many women,
especially those who were in their mid-30s or older, had a strong tendency
to conceal their prolonged emotional abuse in their marriages for extended
periods. In contrast, those who were younger were less constrained by tra-
ditional practices and patriarchal values, probably because of the relatively
more progressive social climate in which they were embedded during their
formative years. But even the younger ones were subject to the influence of
patriarchal values and practices that are deeply entrenched in the Chinese
culture, although the intensity of such influences had been weakened by the
impact of social change and modernization. The womens levels of educa-
tion did not have a significant impact on the womens disclosure or conceal-
ment behaviors. Indeed, Madam Bai, the silent sufferer quoted in this arti-
cle, had received a high school education and was considered relatively
more educated than the other women in her age cohort. We discovered that
many of the participants were strongly influenced by the traditional familial
and cultural teachings that they experienced in their early years, irrespec-
tive of their social and educational backgrounds, and that these values and
conceptions had been gradually internalized and had shaped their percep-
tions of, as well as their approaches to addressing, their abusive marriages.
Through a rigorous process of data analysis, we gradually discovered that a
culture of concealment existed among these women and that this culture
was socially constructed through the interplay of individual, familial, social,
and cultural forces. We found that this culture of concealment was highly
oppressive and had a negative impact on the womens personal, interper-
sonal, and social well-being.

THE CONCEPT AND SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEALMENT

The concept of concealment is not unique to Chinese culture. In recent

years, there has been a keen interest among social psychologists in the West
in the practices of concealment and disclosure and their relationship to pro-
fessional help-seeking behavior (Cepeda, Benito, & Short, 1998; Dunham &
Senn, 2000; Gordon & Paci, 1997; Kelly & Achter, 1995; Larson & Chastain,
1990). Kelly and Achter (1995) used the term self-concealment, which they
defined as a predisposition to hide distressing and potentially embarrassing
personal information. They studied the association between self-concealment
and the likelihood of seeking professional psychological help. Gordon
and Paci (1997) used a narrative approach to understand concealment and
disclosure practices. They found that nondisclosure, which is commonly
practiced by physicians in Tuscany in dealing with cancer patients, was
deeply entrenched in a larger cultural narrative, which they termed social

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288 Affilia Fall 2005

embeddedness. Although the practice of nondisclosure has been fiercely chal-

lenged by physicians in the United States for its lack of openness and its dis-
respect of patients right to be informed, the social embeddedness was
regarded by residents of Tuscany as a demonstration of social unity and
hierarchy and as a means of adapting to the inevitable necessities of life by
using a narrative to construct a sense of group protection. Dunham and
Senn (2000), who studied the tendency of abused women to withhold infor-
mation and to conceal domestic violence, discovered that the majority of
women who disclosed abuse to friends and relatives omitted information to
limit and manage their confidantes reactions to their disclosure and to
enhance the likelihood of receiving social support.
Concealment practices are historically and culturally specific and are
strongly influenced by the orientations of societies in which they arise. The
self of the key actors who are involved in the process is constantly recon-
structed, depending on the social milieu. According to the traditional
understanding of self, there is a real and objective self that is one dimen-
sional and consistent. However, from a postmodern perspective, the self is
fluid, mobile, and constantly changing. Gergen (1991), a key proponent of
social construction theory, postulated that the original concept of self was
eroded in modern society because of social saturation and that a new con-
cept of self, as a public creation, emerged. According to Gergen, the self does
not exist objectively and independently; rather, it is brought into being and
shaped by relational networks. Individuals are created within relationships
and are constantly reconstructed in accordance with the historical, cultural,
and social milieu in which these relationships are embedded. Hence, rela-
tionships are central to the understanding of self. The individual is not
viewed as an autonomous agent; the construction of self is largely deter-
mined by others, particularly peer groups and significant others. It is
through interaction with these people that the self is established and consol-
idated. Thus, the self changes in response to different situations and times.
Gergen (1991) observed that ones identity is continuously emergent, re-
formed, and redirected as one moves through the sea of ever-changing rela-
tionships (p. 139). This view is similar to the sociological concept of the
looking-glass self, proposed by Cooley (1993). Cooley maintained that the
self can be identified only if we use others as mirrors. Similarly, Goffman
(1973) argued that daily life is a drama in which individuals construct a suit-
able self that is appropriate to their role expectations and perform their
scripts accordingly.

THE CULTURE OF CONCEALMENT AMONG THE PARTICIPANTS

Almost all the 15 women in our study concealed their marital conflict,
even from their closest relatives, especially during the early stage. Numer-
ous strategies were adopted to create the pretence that they were still

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Yuen-Tsang, Sung 289

enjoying a stable family life. The tendency to conceal family conflicts among
Chinese women is so intense and prevalent that it has developed into a cul-
ture of its own. The prevalence of the culture of concealment among these
women was evident, and the womens determination to hide their situation
from their relatives was taken to extraordinary lengths. The following are
striking examples of these womens resolve to conceal their experiences and
their underlying fears and concerns.

Madam Fei: The Disillusioned Dreamer

Madam Fei, aged 35, became a factory worker after she completed junior
high school. She was the eldest daughter of her parents, who longed to have
a son but ended up having three daughters. Her mother wanted her to
marry a good man and to find a good refuge that [she] could depend on for
the rest of her life. However, Madam Fei fell in love with an immigrant
from China who was hired as a casual laborer at her factory. She accepted his
courtship despite severe opposition from her family, especially her mother,
who thought that he was too poor and could never provide a comfortable
home for her daughter. After 2 years of secret courtship, Madam Fei was
married in the registry, and none of her relatives attended the ceremony. She
and her husband moved into a partitioned room in a shabby apartment near
the factory and worked with extreme diligence to save enough money to
establish a dream house of [their] own. Madam Fei wanted to prove to her
mother that she had made the right choice, so that her mother could have
face in front of relatives. During this period, Madam Fei had two abortions,
because she wanted to concentrate on earning money. After 5 years, she and
her husband had saved enough money that he was able to start a small busi-
ness trading clothing in Guangzhou, China. Madam Fei was proud of her
husbands achievements; she felt that she was finally able to stand up in
front of her relatives by realizing her dreams of having a stable home and a
small business.
Madam Feis dreams were shattered when her husband told her, in their
8th year of marriage, that he had a woman outside and that he was divorc-
ing Madam Fei because the woman was already pregnant. Despite her
repeated pleas, her husband moved away and never returned. Madam Fei
did not tell any of her friends, workmates, or relatives about her marital cri-
sis. At the end of the workday, she would stay at home with the door locked.
She thought of attempting suicide several times, but she restrained herself
because her mother had high blood pressure, and she knew that her
mothers health would deteriorate if she committed suicide. For 2 years,
during the Chinese New Year, she stayed home, switched off all the lights,
ate only biscuits and canned food, and pretended to others that she was on
vacation with her husband. She said that she felt like a dead person with-
out a soul while she moved around in the darkness of her home. She felt
that she had no choice because

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290 Affilia Fall 2005

I felt so ashamed and guilty that my marriage had failed. Everyone thought
that my marriage would fail in the beginning, and I hoped that I could prove to
them, especially my mother, that I had chosen the right person. But, in the end,
I had failed them and had brought shame to the whole family. I dare not face
my family because I do not want them to be disappointed and to lose face in
front of their friends and relatives.

Madam Fei also pretended to her workmates that she had a good relation-
ship with her husband but that he had to stay in Guangzhou because of his
business. She was worried that her workmates would, as she put it, look
down upon me and laugh behind my back if they knew that her husband
had deserted her. She was finally persuaded to reveal her secret to a social
worker whom she accidentally contacted through a womens hot-line
service.

Madam Bai: The Silent Sufferer

Madam Bai, aged 55, had concealed her abusive marriage for 25 years
before she finally disclosed the long-kept secret. She was the only daughter
of a rich landlord in Guangdong, China, and had a happy childhood. Her
family was purged during the anti-Rightist Movement and later during the
Cultural Revolution. Her parents arranged for her to escape to Hong Kong
when she was 16 and entrusted her to the guardianship of her aunt. Her par-
ents later died during the Cultural Revolution. Her aunt, who was well off,
treated her as well as she treated her own children, although Madam Bai
regarded herself as not one of them and always longed for her parents.
She managed to finish high school, but could not continue her education
because of her low marks in English. She worked as an office clerk for a few
years before a distant relative introduced her to her husband, who was
working as a supervisor in her relatives factory; the relative found him to be
reliable and hardworking. Mr. and Madam Bai decided to get married after
2 years of courtship. All her relatives approved of the marriage and were
relieved that Madam Bai had finally found a trustworthy man on whom
she could depend for the rest of her life. Madam Bai was also happy
because, as she said, I would finally have a home of my own after so many
years of drifting around.
As soon as they were married, Madam Bai decided to give all the money
and jewelry that she brought from China, as well as the dowry she received
from her aunt, to her husband so that he could open a small printing factory.
She hoped that her husband would become financially independent and
would not be looked down on by her relatives. Madam Bai did not keep any
money in her own name, because she believed that a married woman
should be a follower of her husband and that a womans pride rests with
her husband. At the beginning of her marriage, Madam Bai helped her
husband with the factorys accounts, but she decided to stay at home after
she gave birth to their first son one year later. Madam Bai quickly became

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Yuen-Tsang, Sung 291

pregnant again. One night, when she turned up unexpectedly at the factory,
she discovered that her husband was having an affair with a female factory
worker, who was actually her distant cousin. Madam Bai was so shocked
and furious with her husband that she nearly lost her baby. After that night,
she said that her husband changed to another person; he shouted at her
and beat her for no reason. Her husband usually stayed at the factory with
the cousin and seldom returned home.
Instead of telling her aunt and relatives about her husbands affair,
Madam Bai decided to conceal the truth and keep silent because

I felt ashamed that I could not keep my husband. . . . I did not want to disap-
point my aunt and my relatives because they had high hopes for me and my
marriage. My aunt wanted me to have a good marriage, so she could be
answerable to my parents. If she found out that I was being mistreated by my
husband, she would feel very guilty and would feel that she could not face my
parents who have passed away.

As a result, Madam Bai continued to meet regularly with her aunt and rel-
atives, but she did not reveal the secret about her marital conflict to them or
anyone else. When her husband realized that she was afraid to admit her sit-
uation to her relatives, he blackmailed her by threatening to reveal the
secret to the whole world whenever she fought back. They even had an
agreement that in return for leaving her husband alone and not interfering
with his affairs, Madam Bai would receive financial aid, and her husband
would pretend to be a dutiful spouse in the presence of her family.
Madam Bai kept her secret from her relatives for 25 years. Her two sons
were the only ones who knew her real situation, but they were forced to con-
ceal the truth because they were financially dependent on their father.
Madam Bai had to beg her husband to pay for their sons school fees, and
once her husband hit her with an iron stool when she asked him for money.
She decided to keep silent, partly because of her fear of disappointing her
relatives and partly because of her financial dependence on her husband.
Her secret was finally disclosed 2 years earlier when she was fiercely beaten
by her husband, and her wounds were accidentally discovered by her
cousin, who is a physician. Her cousin was shocked to find that Madam Bai
had endured such a prolonged period of silent suffering. Because, at the
time of her cousins discovery, Madam Bais aunt had died and her sons
were adults, Madam Bai was persuaded to share her secret with her close
relatives and to seek a formal divorce from her husband.
These two cases clearly illustrate the complexity of the feelings experi-
enced by Chinese women in unhappy relationships, the reasons why they
conceal their situation, and the strategies they adopt to deceive others. The
other 13 participants expressed similar fears and concerns and were also
anxious to conceal their marital discord. The culture of concealment was
also evident in the stories of all the other women interviewed. Madam Chiu,

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292 Affilia Fall 2005

for instance, did not dare to let her parents and relatives know that her hus-
band had actually left her behind and was cohabiting with another woman
on the Chinese mainland. She decided to conceal the matter by keeping a
distance with friends and relatives and moved to live alone in the new
town, pretending that she had found a job there. Madam Yu did not have
money to buy milk and food for her children, because her husband spent all
his income on gambling. However, instead of seeking help from relatives
and friends, she preferred to borrow money from loan sharks and later got
into debt because of her failure to return the money and the accumulated
interest on time. Similarly, Madam Fong, a clerical worker and mother of
two, decided to conceal from her children the fact that her husband had
abandoned the family and was cohabiting with another woman. She told
her children that her husband was working as a seaman and had to stay
away from home for long periods. She believed that her children would be
emotionally hurt and would be looked down on by their classmates if
they knew of their father s departure.
In summary, the culture of concealment is a common pattern found
among all the 15 Chinese women whom we have interviewed. The womens
common reasons for concealment included the fear of losing face in front of
their friends, neighbors, and relatives; the fear of disappointing their parents
and relatives; the fear that their children might be viewed with contempt by
their peers; the fear of losing the financial support of their husbands; and the
fear that there would be no chance in the future for reconciliation if their
marital conflict was made public. Most participants were willing to disclose
their secrets only to outsiders, such as social workers, physicians and
nurses, and volunteers of hot-line services, because they did not have a rela-
tionship with these strangers and could conceal their identities from these
strangers even while seeking help.

DISCUSSION

Social construction theory was extremely useful in helping us to under-

stand the evolution and prevalence of the culture of concealment among
Chinese women who experience marital conflict. The identity and values of
the participants were shaped by their peer groups and significant others.
The culture of concealment is not an objective construct that applies to all
Chinese women. Rather, this culture was created, maintained, and succes-
sively reinforced by a process of co-construction among the participants,
their significant others, and the social environment in which they were
embedded. In this section, we use the cases of Madam Bai, Madam Fei, and
other participants to illustrate the processes by which the culture of conceal-
ment was being socially constructed through successive internal and
external reinforcements during the womens lives.

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Yuen-Tsang, Sung 293

Internalization of Patriarchal Beliefs and Practices

Most of the participants were brought up in traditional Chinese families

that emphasized womens submission to their elders, parents, and hus-
bands. From childhood, they all were educated to believe that womens
place is in the family; that the happiness of women rests within the fam-
ily; and that women should obey their fathers before marriage, obey their
husbands after marriage, and obey their sons when old. These patriarchal
beliefs and practices were entrenched in these women, who assumed that
they would be happy and fulfilled if they could find good husbands and
establish harmonious homes.
Madam Bais yearning for fulfillment in marriage was even more intense
because she had lost her own family during the Cultural Revolution and
longed to find a substitute. Her only aspirations were to have a family of her
own and to become a loyal wife and a loving mother. Her image of the per-
fect wife was reinforced by her relatives in Hong Kong, who also believed
that a womans ultimate destiny is in the home and that finding a good
husband is the solution to all previous unhappiness. The relatives deter-
mination to help Madam Bai find a suitable husband and their view of mar-
riage as a panacea heightened her expectations of marriage.
Thus, the normative gender-role expectations of Madam Bai and Madam
Fei were socially constructed during their childhood and youth. Their per-
sonal values were molded by their immediate and extended families in a
highly patriarchal social milieu. As they grew up, these women gradually
internalized the belief that a womans worth is measured by her perfor-
mance of certain roles. Traditional values, which were originally external to
them, gradually became inscribed as integral and inseparable aspects of
their self.

External Reinforcement of Patriarchal Beliefs

Madam Feis courtship did not proceed smoothly, because her fianc was
viewed with disfavor by her family members, including her mother with
whom she was close. However, Madam Fei married her husband despite
her familys opposition. She felt torn between the traditional values of filial
piety and obedience to her parents and elderly relatives and her love for her
husband. After her marriage, she tried to regain her familys acceptance by
demonstrating her husbands worth. Her struggle to earn money and to
help her husband establish his own small business was her way of gaining
reentry to her family network. The two abortions that she had, despite her
love of children, were indicative of her determination to prove to her family
that she had made the right choice of a partner. Her efforts finally resulted in
her reconciliation with her family and the acceptance of her husband by her
mother. Madam Fei treasured the hard-won approval of her family and her
reconciliation with her extended family members. Her rebellious self was

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294 Affilia Fall 2005

resubjugated to the dominance of her traditional self, and she finally

reclaimed her lost role as an obedient daughter and a submissive wife.
Madam Bais concealment practice was also reinforced by family and
peer pressure. After the tragic loss of her parents in the Cultural Revolution,
her relatives were keen to help Madam Bai find a loving husband and a
happy home. Their deep concern added to the pressure on Madam Bai; she
was determined to have an ideal home. Because Madam Bais husband was
hand picked by her relatives and her marriage was regarded as a happy
ending, both sides were determined to keep the marriage intact. Madam
Bais heightened expectations of marriage were therefore the result of the
co-construction between herself and her extended family members. Madam
Bai happily adopted her new identity as a submissive and caring wife and a
loving mother to fulfill her socially constructed role expectations. She was
content with this newly created self as a submissive wife and a loving
mother and was determined to perform her roles to the best of her abilities.

The Co-construction of the Culture of Concealment

The culture of concealment was co-constructed by the participants and

their significant others through a process of dynamic interaction. Madam
Fei and Madam Bai were totally unprepared for the marital conflict that
emerged in their marriages. Their discovery of their husbands unfaithful-
ness shattered their dreams of having loving husbands and harmonious
families. They had been prepared since childhood to assume the roles of
loyal wife and loving mother, and they had internalized the belief that mar-
riage is for life and must be kept intact against all odds. To admit that ones
marriage had failed would entail the loss of the self that they had nurtured
for years. Because marriage was perceived as their ultimate goal in life, they
had developed no other resources to fall back on should they become sepa-
rated or divorced. It is, therefore, understandable that Madam Fei and
Madam Bai would conceal their unhappy marital situations because of their
inability to accept the failure of their marriages.
The culture of concealment was sustained and perpetuated by the inter-
play of individual, group, environmental, and cultural factors. Madam Fei
did not have the confidence to break her silence because of her entrenched
patriarchal belief that women should be blamed for broken marriages
because of their inability to keep their husbands satisfied. She believed that
her relatives, especially her mother, would be greatly disappointed if they
learned that her marriage had failed. Moreover, she assumed that disclosure
would lead to ridicule from her friends and workmates. Her intense concern
to save face and to regain the respect of her family members exacerbated
her fear of disclosure. The fact that her relatives seemed to have finally
accepted her husband and were proud of his success forced Madam Fei to
perpetuate the lie. In fact, she had to work hard to sustain the false image

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Yuen-Tsang, Sung 295

among her relatives, and this deception, in itself, made it more difficult to
escape the culture of concealment.
Madam Bai was similarly trapped by this culture of concealment as a
result of the interplay of personal, familial, environmental, and cultural fac-
tors. Her deeply entrenched patriarchal beliefs, together with her intense
love for her children and her fear of losing the financial support of her hus-
band, prevented her from revealing the truth. Moreover, she had forced her
children to collaborate in her concealment because of her intense fear that
her children would become the objects of ridicule or pity.
In all our 15 cases, the culture of concealment had gradually evolved
through a process of social construction. Individual, environmental, and
cultural factors intertwined to develop and reinforce these womens patriar-
chal beliefs and their tendency to conceal their marital conflict and to remain
silent. The culture of concealment was highly oppressive; it undermined the
personal, interpersonal, and social well-being of Madam Fei, Madam Bai,
and all our interviewees for a long time.

IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

From the foregoing analysis, it is evident that the culture of concealment

is highly oppressive and negatively affects womens personal, interper-
sonal, and social well-being. To help Chinese women who are undergoing
marital conflicts break away from their habitual pattern of concealing their
marital discord and be liberated from the tyranny of this culture of conceal-
ment, social work interventions have to be developed or further enhanced
to serve the womens needs at different levels.

Personal Level

The central factor that contributed to the development and maintenance

of the culture of concealment among the participants was the womens
entrenched patriarchal beliefs. The belief that womens place is in the fam-
ily; that the happiness of women rests within the family; and that
women should obey their fathers before marriage, obey their husbands
after marriage, and obey their sons when old had become so entrenched
that they were unable to accept any deviation from the norm. Their fear of
being ridiculed and isolated if they disclosed their marital discord was a
self-constructed fear that had been steadily reinforced by their significant
others and by external forces in the social-cultural milieu in which they were
embedded.
To help Chinese women who are undergoing marital conflicts to disclose
their problems and to seek help during crises, it is therefore crucial that the
women should be emancipated from their own patriarchal beliefs. In fact,
many social workers in Hong Kong are keenly aware of the need to help

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296 Affilia Fall 2005

their female clients be released from the bondage of their patriarchal orien-
tations and are actively using the empowerment model in their practice
(Wong, 1999; Yip, 2004). Many social workers are using the empowerment
model in their daily practice with the elderly, families and children, persons
with mental problems, and women with the aim of facilitating their clients
to be emancipated from oppressive cultural beliefs and practices (Wong,
1999). However, it has been observed that direct borrowing of the empower-
ment model from the West may not be appropriate in the Chinese context
and that a culturally sensitive empowerment model that is grounded in Chi-
nese cultural orientations has to be developed (Yip, 2004).
In view of the analysis presented here, it is essential that social workers
are sensitized to the need for gender-sensitive and culturally sensitive prac-
tice. A gender-sensitive and culturally sensitive approach should be
adopted in the intervention process, taking into consideration the social and
cultural orientations of these women and their fears and inhibitions. Social
workers need to be able to listen to the inner voices of Chinese women who
are undergoing marital conflicts and to empathize with the fear and ten-
sions that these women are experiencing. It is only when they are able to
appreciate the personal stories of these women from their own perspectives
that they will be able to move closer to helping the women be liberated from
the tyranny of deeply entrenched patriarchal beliefs. With such an orienta-
tion, social workers could then help these women to analyze the negative
impact of their patriarchal beliefs, to demystify their ungrounded fears, and
to disentangle themselves from the bondage of these beliefs in ways that
these women consider to be appropriate.
One of the major problems encountered in the process of helping Chinese
women in abusive marriages, however, is the difficulty in reaching out to
them. Given the womens fear of disclosing their marital discord and their
tendency to conceal their secrets, it is obvious that they will not be easily
approachable by social workers. Thus, efforts have to be made to reach out
to them in an unthreatening manner and to minimize their fear of disclo-
sure. Services that allow these women to remain anonymous and give them
the freedom to ventilate their fears and problems in a safe environment will
be preferred. We accidentally found that at least half the women whom we
interviewed were initially identified through telephone hot lines provided
by service organizations in Hong Kong. The use of telephone hot lines
seems to be a useful approach, especially for women who are still
entrenched in the culture of concealment and are not comfortable revealing
their identities to their helpers. The use of unknown but empathic outsiders
and strangers as helpers during the beginning stage of the help-seeking pro-
cess seems to be more acceptable than the use of insiders who are close to the
women. This fact explains the extreme popularity of telephone hot lines for
women in Hong Kong and in many major cities on the Chinese mainland
that provide counseling services for women. After they break the ice and
reveal their secrets to strangers in the hot lines or through other anonymous

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Yuen-Tsang, Sung 297

means, these women could be gradually encouraged to approach social

workers openly for help.

Interpersonal Level

Chinese women in abusive marriages are fearful of disclosing their

secrets to others because they do not want to bring shame to themselves,
their children, and their family members. But this culture of concealment is
highly oppressive and has created much anxiety, fear, and tension among
women who are involved in it. The prolonged suppression of emotions and
feelings that are associated with their marital discord is detrimental to their
well-being and to their mental health. Social work intervention with Chi-
nese women in abusive marriages must therefore take into consideration
the feelings of these women and respect their obsessive concern for conceal-
ment. Hence, social workers should not attempt to force these women to
disclose their secrets to unsuitable persons and under inappropriate
circumstances.
In our experience, mutual support groups that endeavor to provide sup-
port for women who are undergoing similar marital conflicts are desirable.
Because these women are highly sensitive and do not want to lose face in
front of their friends and relatives, they would not easily reveal their marital
problems to people who are close to them. However, they would feel much
more at ease when they share their problems with those who are experienc-
ing similar problems. Revealing marital conflicts to those who are in the
same boat would provide an excellent opportunity for ventilation, sharing,
and support in a safe environment in which the women could interact and
share without the fear of being ridiculed or their secrets being exposed.

Community Level

Because the culture of concealment is embedded in the social milieu and

is intertwined with the social and cultural beliefs of the society, it is essential
that efforts are made to educate the public so as to reduce the stigma on those
whose marriages have failed. Public education programs that are aimed at
raising the gender awareness of the public and gradually eradicating patri-
archal beliefs in society in the long term have to be developed. Because
beliefs and conceptions are usually developed and gradually evolve in the
formative stages of life, the need to integrate gender-sensitive perspectives
into the primary and secondary curricula is critical. It is only when the soci-
ety has developed a culture that respects the dignity of women and provides
opportunities for womens self-actualization and free expression of feelings
that the tyranny of the culture of concealment will be overcome.

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298 Affilia Fall 2005

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Angelina Yuen-Tsang, Ph.D., is a professor and head of the Department of Applied Social
Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

Pauline Sung, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Applied Social Sciences,
Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

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