Who is The Butcher from Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and what is their importance?

Snow Flower's husband, the butcher, is coarse, vulgar and mean. He is used to doing vile work such as butchering and bleeding pigs, and he blames Snow Flower for the loss of each child. His life is "polluted" by Snow Flower's standards. However, when the Wang family and Lily are forced into the mountains and must survive through hunger and severe weather, the butcher cuts firewood and takes care of the chores that the women cannot do. In this way, Lily and her husband come to see him as a better man than they had realized.