GILED CAPTIVITY
Traditional Chinese marriage appears to confine women like a cage. In this distorted tradition, women are treated as commodities. They are priced. Once a man spends heavily to "buy" a woman, she is expected to learn how to obey and serve him. This woman is not supposed to have any thoughts or knowledge because the man does not allow her to express any opinions. Throughout her life, she is obligated to ponder on how to bear sons to continue the family lineage. This terrifying tradition turns these women into thoughtless child-bearing machines. Starting from the moment they wear traditional gold jewelry (gold earrings, gold necklace, gold bracelets, gold rings, gold anklets) upon marriage, they enter an invisible and intangible marital cage. Women are lit like candles, gradually melting away, and eventually, no one remembers what they once looked like. Using traditional Chinese gold jewelry as a starting point, I aim to open the terrifying and distorted Pandora's box of Chinese marriage.