SOUTH VIET NAM: Dainty Emancipator

Among the heroic figures in Indo-China's past, no two are more revered than the fabled Trungs—the beautiful young sisters who raised an army against the Chinese invaders in the middle of the 1st century and, faced with defeat, threw themselves into the Red River rather than surrender.

Women since then have had little chance to appear heroic. For centuries, the women of what is now South Viet Nam could not marry without their parents' consent, no matter what their age, or refuse a husband of their parents' choosing. They had to live with their in-laws, endure without protest their husbands'...

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