The Fox Wife

For the women in The Fox Wife, feeling safe in one’s environment is often a negotiated compromise. Women must navigate bodily autonomy and manage the immoral—and often male-coded—societal expectations placed upon them. For example, the bookkeeper’s granddaughter has had to deal with a dangerous society from a young age—so much so that Choo intimates a loss of innocence in the unnamed girl’s childhood. As the girl explains to Bao, she understands the nature of doing business in the pleasure house: “[The girls are] brought in by men. Mostly good-looking ones who buy women from rural areas. That’s why I don’t plan on marrying a handsome husband” (202). The bookkeeper’s granddaughter grasps how marriage can lead to dehumanization, unpayable debt, and misery. She is forced to remain on guard with the men around her and places her trust in something amoral but reliable: money. For her, money becomes a potential shield. It represents what she lacks in a society that would see her as an object to pleasure men. As she explains to Bao, “If you don’t have money, you get sold” (202). She proves herself to be a keen observer of her environment. Her predicament indicates the wariness and compromise that a young girl must endure to feel safe in her own body.

Tagtaa’s mother attempts to secure autonomy for her daughter. As the offspring of a Mongolian concubine, Tagtaa’s bodily autonomy and independence are tied to her bloodline and the state of her feet. Though little can be done about her parentage, Tagtaa’s mother is able to secure some freedom for her daughter by going against Han Chinese tradition and keeping Tagtaa’s feet unbound. Binding the feet of young girls (typically aged four to six years old) is of such cultural importance that even Bao remarks how “[n]o Han Chinese of good standing would marry a girl with unbound feet. This is the only way her Mongolian mother could exert some influence on her daughter’s fate” (137). Here, foot binding becomes both literal and metaphorical—the practice literally restricts women’s movement while also restricting their opportunities and social status.

In this sense, it is ironic that letting Tagtaa’s feet grow freely does not guarantee her freedom. While she might not be appealing to the Han Chinese marriage market, having unbound feet does not allow her to marry whomever she wants. Bao, being Han Chinese, is inaccessible to her because she is a concubine’s daughter and her feet remain in their natural state. As the narrative relays, “In that moment, he also realizes why his own mother permitted their childhood friendship to continue. Nobody has ever been under any illusion that Tagtaa could be a fit wife for Bao” (137). Additionally, not modifying Tagtaa’s feet does not save her from the cultural practice of an arranged marriage. Rather, she is simply sent to Inner Mongolia to marry her relative. When the match fails, she is promised to a much older man as his fourth wife. Through Tagtaa, the novel shows how women of this era often compromised their bodies for a modicum of autonomy and a sense of imperfect safety with their partners.