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Course:CSIS200/2025/The Golden Cangue: Heterosexual Marriage and the Intergenerational Replication of Discipline

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Author's bio

My name is Veronica G., and I am a second-year student at UBC with interests in gender studies and literary analysis. This project emerges from my interests in Eileen Chang's work and my interest in how heteronormative structures shape intimate relationships beyond the heterosexual relationship. I chose this book as my artifact because it provides a unique literary perspective on the intergenerational transmission of patriarchal discipline, particularly through the mother-daughter relationship, which is a phenomenon frequently romanticized and neglected in discussions of familial relationships. Thus, I hope to demonstrate how literature can illuminate mechanisms of power that persist across time and culture. And I hope readers will come away with a more critical understanding of how compulsory heterosexuality operates through reading my work.

Introduction of the golden cangue

Left, a Tartar musketeer holding a gun; right, Chinese man pilloried. Coloured engraving by A Freschi, 30 May 1812. Created 30 May 1812. Contributors: Andrea Freschi (1774–). Work ID: tvds5d49. [1]

What does it mean to wear gold that imprisons? Eileen Chang's work The Golden Cangue [2] traces this transformation through a single symbol, that is, a golden cangue that binds one generation to the next. The cangue itself, which is a wooden frame used to hold prisoners, is a reference to an old Chinese punishment device. [1] [3] The author changes this metaphor into a golden one, combining wealth with imprisonment. This contradiction reveals the essence of heterosexual marriage: what looks like stability is also a form of confinement. Therefore, this artifact introduces the theme I aim to explore: How does the "golden cangue" reveal heterosexual marriage's intergenerational replication of discipline mechanisms in familial relationships, specifically in China?

In The Golden Cangue [2], the cangue has changed her from an oppressed victim hated by the feudal family into a tyrannical oppressor who controls her daughter's future. The author says that she holds the cangue as if she has taken over the whole family's breath. [3] This change shows how the cangue can make people feel dehumanized. Her relationship with her daughter Chang'an mirrors the disciplinary mechanisms of patriarchal intimacy. [4] The golden cangue represents not only Qiqiao's imprisonment but also the means by which it perpetuates itself through generations.

The logic of replication in compulsory heterosexuality

To analyze how the golden cangue replicates itself, I quote Adrienne Rich's concept of "compulsory heterosexuality" [5], which she describes as "Gender difference reinforces a society organized around the norm of heterosexuality, so that we are all taught and coerced into adopting conventional gender identities by social creation." [5] This theory demonstrates that heterosexual marriage is a disciplinary institution that shapes desire, restricts alternatives, and reproduces itself through those it constrains. Compulsory heterosexuality first affects Qiqiao, who embodies this mechanism. She is traded into marriage, her body commodified, her desires irrelevant, fastening the first golden cangue around her wrist. The cangue thereby reshapes her. When she becomes the family's matriarch, she replicates the only relational logic she knows when she is in control of the family. [4] The following analysis traces this replication through three dimensions: the institution of marriage, bodily control, and economic dependency.

Constructed intimacy in the institution of marriage

cover of The Invention of Heterosexuality, by Jonathan Katz, source: https://webcat.library.ubc.ca/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=3739483, copyright of this work is owned by UBC [6]

The Golden Cangue [2] illustrates how heterosexual relationship patterns are repeated within familial ties, highlighting the pervasive effects of patriarchy. The shift from procreation-centered to pleasure-centered sexual ethics emphasizes the social construction of heterosexuality: "The erotic became the raw material for a new consumer culture," claimed Jonathan Katz. [7] This idea shows heterosexuality as a socially constructed institution rather than an instinct. The cover of his book provides visual evidence for this idea. Two figures lean toward each other in soft focus, their features blurred into an almost dreamlike intimacy. The aesthetic naturalizes heterosexual desire, which appears timeless, universal, and simply there. [6] However, the title disrupts this illusion: "HETERO" is set apart in lighter type from "SEXUALITY," visually fragmenting what the image presents as a whole. [6] The cover thus performs the very tension Katz theorizes, that is, heterosexuality appears natural precisely because its construction has been rendered invisible.

If heterosexuality is socially constructed rather than biologically inherent, its relational dynamics may consist not only of marriages but also of mother-daughter relationships. Qiqiao imitates the controlling and possessive traits of heterosexual marriage when Chang'an tries to flee by marrying a man [4], turning their mother-daughter relationship into yet another golden cangue. This replication illustrates heterosexuality as a "relational template" [7], a patriarchal power structure that organizes all intimate relationships and diminishes non-sexual female connections.

Les Amants by René Magritte, 1928. Oil on canvas.[8]

But how does an invented institution maintain its appearance of naturalness? René Magritte's The Lovers [8] offers a visual answer. Magritte's The Lovers [8] visualizes heterosexual marriage's incapacity for intimacy. In the painting, the use of a veil to obscure the faces of the lovers demonstrates that even in the most intimate physical gesture, alienation and distrust remain preserved. [9] The phenomenon could be linked to the painter's mother's suffocation [9], which serves as a metaphor for heterosexual marriage as an institution that enforces intimacy while simultaneously suffocating genuine connection. Qiqiao in the book [2] was forced into reproductive intimacy so that she bears children and fulfills wifely duties, yet remains emotionally invisible, her desires and identity "veiled" by patriarchal domesticity. Therefore, she has lost the capacity to offer Chang'an unveiled, authentic intimacy. The veil and the golden cangue both symbolize the structural violence of heterosexuality: the veil obscures faces to deny subjectivity and restricts breath to eliminate autonomy, while jewelry represents the imprisonment of a loveless marriage, turning what should unite into an anonymous and suffocating experience.

Bodily Control: Discipline Disguised as Care

Based on Foucault's theory of bodily discipline, which holds that the key mechanism through which power creates obedient subjects is the regulation of the body. [10] By limiting spatial autonomy and regulating body movements, the disciplined object feels normalized. As Nancy Chodorow's theory explains, this discipline transmits specifically through the mother-daughter bond: "the family plays a crucial role in the making of the sexual self," and "gender patterns of sexual and individual development are different." [11] This gendered differentiation in primary attachment produces distinct psychosexual formations: "The extended and intense intimacy between mothers and daughters results in girls developing a psyche that is relationship-oriented." [11] When discipline is given by the person closest to you, it does not appear to be control, yet it feels like love.

Quote from Elfriede Jelinek's The Piano Teacher (1983). Screenshot from https://webcat.library.ubc.ca/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=674350. Copyright owned by UBC.

Elfriede Jelinek's The Piano Teacher [12] dramatizes this collapse of care and violence. The quote "Erika's mother prefers inflicting injuries herself to supervising the therapy." [12] This illustrates how the mother turns abuse into a kind of defense by monopolizing both harm and care. The goal is not protection but possession. The Golden Cangue illustrates how this mechanism operates: When Qiqiao was the age of her daughter, she was restricted to her boudoir, her in-laws judged her appearance, and her physical movements were limited by her reproductive responsibilities. [3] After internalizing this disciplinary mechanism, she imposed it like a golden cangue on Chang'an, closely monitoring her daughter's social interactions and justifying surveillance as a form of defense. [4] Qiqiao thus replicates the bodily control systems of heterosexual marriage. This subtle confusion of care and control exemplifies heteronormative norms that shape mother-daughter relationships.

Economic Dependency: Women as Exchangeable Assets

In heterosexual marriages, women's worth is reduced to exchange value. A daughter's virginity, obedience, and looks become things that can be traded, invested in, and managed. The mother learns to treat her daughter like a commodity because that's the only way she knows how to make money through heterosexual marriage. Yang Ya-che's 2017 film The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful [13] shows how this mechanism was brought to Taiwan in the 1990s. The film unfolds against a backdrop of political corruption, showing three generations of women: grandmother Yueying, daughter Ning, and granddaughter Zhen. [13] Daughter Ning's sexual attractiveness and social connections are used to get political favors, while granddaughter Zhen's chastity and obedience are used to protect the family's honor. [13] The cover from the clip shows three characters with human bodies but ghostly, mask-like faces that show how evil they are on the inside. [14] Even among family members, their different looks show that they don't trust each other and have hidden intentions. [14] This picture perfectly reveals how heterosexual marriage makes mothers in charge of their daughters' bodies and worth.

The Golden Cangue [2] and the movie are similar in circumstances, even though they are more than 70 years apart. Qiqiao becomes a product when her family trades her for wealth and fortune. She employs this mechanism while deliberately sabotaging potential marriages and meticulously monitoring Chang'an's "market value" to maintain control over her daughter as an asset. [3] The patriarchal capitalist system thus diminishes women's intimate relationships and bodily autonomy for exchange value within heterosexual families, whether in Shanghai in the 1940s or Taiwan in the 1990s. This is how the golden cangue works in different times, tying women together through their need for money, their desire for it, and their discipline.

video source: [14]

Conclusion: Escape Without Liberation

Eileen Chang's mother, ca. 1926. This is my mom in London in 1926. -- "Dui Zhao Ji", p 024 [15]

The authentic mother-daughter relationship recorded by Eileen Chang in her memoir, Dui Zhao Ji [16], offers a real-world counterpart to her fiction and demonstrates how the disciplinary effects of heterosexual marriage persist even after a woman chooses to "escape." The woman in the photograph is the author's mother. The melancholy yet noble aura in her eyes and brows is influenced by the shaping influence of her living environment. [15] Her mother, Huang Yifan, married into the Zhang family through a socially appropriate match, unlike Qiqiao, who possessed the possibility of escape. Yet she couldn't stand her husband's infidelity and drug addiction, ultimately choosing to leave. [16] Therefore, Huang Yifan escaped the tangible "golden cangue" of marriage.

Yet escaping marriage did not mean escaping internalized patriarchal discipline. Ward further illuminates that women's subjectivity can be diminished by long-term involvement in heterosexual relationships, which restricts their ability to envision different kinds of intimacy. [17] Huang Yifan grew up in a patriarchal home and was affected by her own heterosexual marriage. [16] She passed these values on to her daughter by telling her that Eileen Chang was unattractive and too tall, using patriarchal standards of female physical appearance to discipline the next generation. [16] Eileen Chang's evaluation of her mother discloses, "I endured her temper, I endured my own ingratitude, and those insignificant humiliations progressively diminished my affection." [16] This statement demonstrates the gradual and fragmented nature of disciplinary harm, illustrating the daughter's guilt and ambivalence—she perceived her mother as a victim while still feeling hurt.

When comparing Huang Yifan to Qiqiao, Qiqiao was completely trapped in the patriarchal "golden cangue" of marriage and couldn't get out. Huang Yifan, on the other hand, was able to escape but could never fully overcome her internalized conditioning. Unlike Chang'an, Eileen Zhang ultimately avoided becoming a replica of her mother, instead embracing understanding and forgiveness. Yet such an incident does not diminish the destructive power of patriarchal discipline. Rather, it demonstrates the immense emotional cost of breaking free. Consequently, Qiqiao's tragedy was institutional. Whether staying or escaping, the internalized influence of heterosexual marriage would become a golden cangue that proved nearly impossible to eradicate.

Despite the publication of this novel in the mid-20th century, the intergenerational replication of discipline mechanisms in heterosexual marriages persists within modern family structures. Thus, the golden cangue may never have truly vanished. Instead, it persists in a different form.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/YW041381V/Left-a-Tartar-musketeer-holding-a-gun
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Chang, E. (1943). The Golden Cangue.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Li, Shi-hua (03. 2009). "On the reasons of Aberrant Personality of Cao Qiqiao". Journal of Xihua Normal University.3.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Yang, Ai Qin (07. 2004). "母亲形象的错位与异化". QILU Journal. 5.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Adrienne Rich (1980) . Theoretical perspectives. In S. Seidman, N. Fischer, & C. Meeks (Eds.), Handbook of the new sexuality studies (1st ed., pp.8). Routledge.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 [1]
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Katz, Jonathan (2007). The Invention of Heterosexuality. University of Chicago Press.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 [2]
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Collier, DaeQuan (Feb 7, 2024). "Surreal Love: Unveiling René Magritte's The Lovers".
  10. ↑ Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Pantheon Books. (Orginal work published 1975).
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chodorow, N. (2006). Theoretical perspectives. In S. Seidman, N. Fischer, & C. Meeks (Eds.), Handbook of the new sexuality studies (1st ed.). Routledge.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Jelinek, E (1988). The piano teacher: a novel. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Yang, Y. (Director). (2017). The bold, the corrupt, and the beautiful [Film]. Atom Films; CMC Entertainment; CS Productions; Kaohsiung Film Fund.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 [3]
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 [4]
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 Chang, E. (2010). 對照記: 散文集.三. 皇冠文化.
  17. ↑ Ward, J. (2020). The tragedy of heterosexuality. New York University Press.
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