- Myeong-su meets a girl on a rural island while he is on vacation. He marries her and takes her back to live in his parent's home. Her mother-in-law views it as a unequal match and maltreats the girl in the hope that she will leave.
- Yong-cheol's plans to mary Ok-rim are destroyed by her parents who marry her off to Cheol-ju. Yong-cheol becomes powerful in the business world during the following years and he does his best to make life miserable for Cheol-ju and Ok-rim.
- Mi-yeong becomes the head of the family after her mother dies. Her older brother suffers from cerebral palsy and her younger brother is very ill. To make her finances stretch more, Mi-yeong commits her elder brother to a state run asylum while she takes a job in a brothel to earn money for her younger brother's medicin…