Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
A beautifully filmed and unsettling tale of misogyny and despair.
The strict adherance to centuries old family traditions in China, even in the emergence of more modern societal mores in the 1920s (such as females going to university to further their education), meant that a woman's marriage with a wealthy man was a prison, devoid of much happiness, and filled only with pain and jealousy of his multiple other wives and mistresses.
As depicted in this film, a woman was so subjugated that she was barely allowed to have her own tastes and opinions, and certainly was never to find an outside lover, unless she had a desire for torture and death.
She was supposed to be quiet, cheerful, follow the rules, and wait patiently until her husband decided to call on her and spend the night, rather than with one of the other wives, and give him a son.
Of course, in this kind of setting it's easy to fall into competitiveness and vicious backstabbing amongst the other women.
This was a difficult watch because it was so upsetting knowing this reality has been true for countless women over time, and even continues today in certain cultures. It's now an international law as decreed by the United Nations that marriage is not to be unwillingly forced upon anyone; it should also be an international law that no one should be able to have "marriage arrangements" with more than one person at a time. This might save some young girls from having their lives destroyed by their parents selling them to rich older men.
(It should be stated, however, that in this film, it was the main character's independent choice to become a concubine, although her mother had been pressuring her to marry.)