How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The brothers were brought up to be men. The girls had been reared to get married. (2.15)
There's a ton of stuff going on in these two sentences, but we'll just point out one. The way these two sentences are paired makes us expect them to be parallel sentences. In other words, we expect the second one to say, "The girls had been reared to be women." But instead, it says that they were reared to get married, implicitly stating that the entire point of a woman's life is to get married. Weddings are cool and everything, but we're pretty sure women are capable of much more awesome things than wearing fancy dresses and throwing a bouquet.
Quote #2
They knew how to do screen embroidery, sew by machine, weave bone lace, wash and iron, make artificial flowers and fancy candy, and write engagement announcements. (2.15)
All of the activities described here are more or less frivolous. They all consist of making some kind of decorative item. Since Angela's mom believes that doing these things makes her daughters the perfect wives, it implies that that's all women are good for. They make decorative objects, and they probably could be considered decorative objects themselves.
Quote #3
The only thing that my mother reproached them for was the custom of combing their hair before sleeping. " Girls," she would tell them, " don' t comb your hair at night; you'll slow down seafarers." (2.15)
Those of you who are not current on your mermaid and siren mythology might have gotten a little tripped up by this quote. One myth says that sirens would sit out at night, combing their long hair and sing in order to lure sailors to their deaths.