Vietnam in the 19th century. As payment for her father's debts, 14-year-old May travels up the river in a boat to marry a man she has never met. At the silk plantation of her much older husband Hung, May is to begin a new life in his family. There she meets his two other wives, Lao and Xuan, who prudently introduce May to the daily rituals and family rules and offer her sisterly, almost tender advice. May learns to find her position between the other two wives and to deal with the expectations the family places on her. She soon realizes that she can only gain status by asserting herself not only through her sexuality, but also as a woman who can and will give birth to a son. May's hope to improve her status becomes a real and promising opportunity through her pregnancy. She embarks on a dangerous path, however, as she falls in love with Xuan, the second wife. May also discovers that Xuan is having a love affair with her husband's firstborn son. But the landowner arranges a marriage for his son, but he is distraught over the forced marriage. When May gives birth to her child, she must decide how to go on living.