Intimate Relationship Case Study: Wu Zetian and Li Zhi Through the Lacanian Lens
Abstract: This article aims to transcend the traditional historiographical and literary narratives of "the female emperor usurping power" or "husband and wife co-governance," and instead employs Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory to structurally dissect the partner-power relationship between Wu Zetian and Li Zhi. This article will argue that their relationship was an unprecedented and unrepeatable topological experiment at the core of the imperial "symbolic order." Li Zhi was not a weak husband, but rather the critical "Other" and mirror image enabling Wu Zetian to transgress gender signs and ultimately arrive at the signifier position of "Son of Heaven"; while Wu Zetian was the externalized projection and substitute executor of the repressed, stern "Name-of-the-Father" within Li Zhi's subjectivity. Their union, under the law of "there is no sexual relationship," enacted a cruel double dance of desire and power upon the throne of the imperial "Big Other." Through Li Zhi as the holder of the "phallic signifier," Wu Zetian conducted an earth-shattering symbolic identity theft and reconstruction, ultimately transforming herself from "object of the Other's desire" (concubine, empress) to "ultimate subject of desire" (emperor). This process profoundly reveals the dynamic entanglement and uncanny symbiosis between gender, desire, and power at the very center of the patriarchal symbolic order.
Introduction: From Palace Secrets to the Implosion of the Symbolic Order
The relationship between Wu Zetian and Tang Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi is heavily wrapped in Confucian moral discourse such as "fox-like seduction of the ruler" and "the hen announcing the dawn," as well as later popular historical romances. Lacan's theory provides a sharp blade to peel away these surface narratives and directly address the unconscious dynamics and symbolic operations driving this imperial couple's relationship.
In Lacan's framework, the "Name-of-the-Father" (Nom-du-Pere) is the core of the symbolic order, representing law and authority. Imperial power is the ultimate earthly incarnation of the "Name-of-the-Father," and its signifier—"Son of Heaven"—is structurally masculinized and phallocentric. The relationship between Wu Zetian and Li Zhi was fundamentally a complex struggle between two subjects around this supreme signifier: one (Li Zhi) was the legal holder yet trapped by bodily weakness and temperamental hesitation; the other (Wu Zetian) possessed an intense desire to rule and political talent, yet was excluded from the symbolic system by virtue of her gender. Their relationship became a dangerous "symptom" erupting within the symbolic order, an extreme experiment attempting to use a Real body (female) to occupy a symbolic position (Son of Heaven) that excluded her.
Chapter One: Li Zhi as "Mirror of the Other" and "Passageway of the Phallic Signifier"
1. Mirror Image and Identification: The Ascension from "Talented Lady" to "Empress" Wu Zetian, initially a Talented Lady under Emperor Taizong, occupied an ambiguous and marginal position within the symbolic order. Li Zhi's appearance became her key Other-mirror image for identification and desire. Lacan holds that desire is the desire of the Other. Wu Zetian's early desire was not directly pointed toward imperial power (which was unthinkable for her), but rather pointed toward becoming the object of Li Zhi's desire as "Son of Heaven," and through becoming the most special and powerful object in his desire, to gain power. From her return to the palace from Ganye Temple to the "abolishment of Empress Wang and elevation of Wu," every step of Wu Zetian's ascension was tightly dependent on Li Zhi's desire and authorization. Li Zhi was her sole legitimate symbolic passageway into the core arena of power. At this stage, she had to fully internalize and perform the ideal feminine image in Li Zhi's desire—both a tender companion and a capable political assistant—thereby constructing a special fusion with him in the Imaginary, laying the groundwork for later symbolic transgression.
2. The Manifestation of Symptom: Li Zhi's "Headaches" and Wu Zetian's "Acting on His Behalf" Li Zhi's "splitting headaches" caused by wind illness (fengji), and the resulting difficulty in governing, constituted a highly symbolically meaningful Real event. Bodily illness (the Real) eroded the Son of Heaven's ability to perform his symbolic function (the Symbolic), creating a rupture between the imperial signifier and its Real bearer. This gap became the crack in legitimacy for Wu Zetian's action.
Wu Zetian "frequently having the Empress decide matters" was not simple "meddling in politics," but rather performing the role of a supplementary, substitute executor of the "Name-of-the-Father." Li Zhi's illness functioned like an unconscious "invitation," summoning Wu Zetian from the inner palace (private domain) to the outer court (public symbolic domain). Here, Lacan's dictum that "the symptom is the truth of the subject's desire" is confirmed: Li Zhi's illness and dependence may well have been his unconscious refusal and transfer of the stern ruling role (a "father" role he could not fully bear). Wu Zetian then became the externalized symptom and proxy of his unspeakable desire to rule.
Chapter Two: Wu Zetian's Symbolic Transgression and Reconstruction of the "Son of Heaven" Signifier
1. From "Empress" to "Two Sages": The Compression of Binary Gender Signs "The Two Sages Presiding Over Court" was an extremely rare symbolic moment in Chinese political history. It broke the traditional gendered binary power structure of "Son of Heaven—Empress." Wu Zetian was no longer merely an "inner helper," but shared the supreme sign of "Sage" with the emperor. This was not equal sharing, but a symbolic invasion and topological distortion. Through Li Zhi as medium, she forcibly embedded her signifier into what was originally a purely masculine symbolic sequence. The court at this time presented a Lacanian uncanny tableau: a physiological female, through the authorization and complicity of a physiological male, occupying partial signifier function of the "Name-of-the-Father." This had already shaken the gender purity of the "Son of Heaven" signifier.
2. Claiming the Throne and Changing the Dynasty: The Ultimate Theft and Rewriting of the "Big Other" Wu Zetian claiming the throne and changing Tang to Zhou was the most thorough provocation and reconstruction of Lacan's "Symbolic order." She accomplished a soul-stirring symbolic identity theft:
- Appropriating the "Son of Heaven" signifier: She directly seized the ultimate sign that originally belonged to males.
- Reconstructing the origin myth: Utilizing the Buddhist Great Cloud Sutra to declare herself as a reincarnation of Maitreya was an attempt to create her own "Big Other" narrative source to replace the Confucian patriarchal lineage, providing a symbolic foundation for her rule.
- Inventing new characters and new names: Such as the character "曌" (Zhao), which was an attempt to imprint her own mark at the level of language (the domain of the Big Other), creating a perfect self-mirror image where signifier and signified are completely unified (like sun and moon illuminating the sky, shining upon all things)—this bordered on a demiurgic semiotic ambition.
In this process, Li Zhi had long passed away, but his symbolic legacy (the Tang dynasty's legal lineage, her identity as empress dowager) as well as their sons (the Li-Tang bloodline) were both obstacles she had to overcome and symbolic stepping stones she could not completely shed during her power transition. She ultimately stood at the position of the "Big Other," but this position, because of the "anomaly" of her physiological gender, was always fraught with fissures and restlessness.
Chapter Three: The Deadlock of Desire and the Revenge of the Real
1. The Imperial Version of "There Is No Sexual Relationship": The Paradox of Dual-Head Rule Wu Zetian and Li Zhi's relationship, even during the most harmonious "Two Sages" period, profoundly embodied the political version of "there is no sexual relationship." There existed no natural, harmonious formula for "emperor-empress co-governance." Their power allocation was always in dynamic tension and negotiation. Li Zhi's late-life attempt to abolish the empress—which failed—proved that Wu Zetian had grown from an object dependent on "the Other's desire" into a subject possessing her own desire logic and able to reciprocally constrain the Other. Their "co-governance" was a reluctant coexistence and mutual utilization of two different desire modes (Li Zhi's Confucian sovereign desire and Wu Zetian's more individuated, more expansive power desire) within the same symbolic framework, not a fusion.
2. The Dilemma of the Successor: Rupture of the Signifier Chain and Failed Suturing Wu Zetian's greatest tragedy was her inability to resolve the problem of the transmission of desire, i.e., the succession problem. In Lacan's view, desire must be transmitted through the signifier chain. Wu Zetian's claiming the throne interrupted the direct transmission of the Li-Tang paternal signifier chain. She faced an insoluble contradiction: passing the throne to nephews of the Wu family could continue the "Zhou" dynasty name, but severed the Real bond of mother-child blood relation; passing it to sons of the Li lineage could maintain the Real mother-child connection, but meant the self-negation of the "Great Zhou" symbolic system she had personally created.
This dilemma was the inherent price of her symbolic transgression. She could temporarily occupy the "father" position, but could not establish in the symbolic order a sustainable signifier transmission system originating from a female. Ultimately, the Shenlong Revolution and the restoration of Tang rule were a forceful rectification and "revenge" by the symbolic order (patriarchal clan law) against this unprecedented female transgression. Her Wordless Stele can be interpreted as the ultimate response to this symbolic dilemma—an empty signifier, surrendering all meaning to the "Big Other" (history, posterity) to fill, inherently acknowledging the immense paradox that her life's enterprise could ultimately not be conclusively defined at the symbolic level.
3. The Decay of the Body and the Fading of Power: The Final Victory of the Real Like all rulers, the illness and decay of her later years (the Real) ultimately eroded Wu Zetian's will to power. Being forced to abdicate and relocate to Shangyang Palace marked the moment when the subject once powerful enough to reconstruct the symbolic was ultimately subjugated by the unsymbolizable process of bodily dissolution. The Real, in the most egalitarian and most cruel manner, declared the temporality and finitude of any symbolic power—even that of a female emperor.
Conclusion: The Footprints of the Transgressor and the Resilience of the Symbolic Order
Through the Lacanian lens, the relationship between Wu Zetian and Li Zhi is an epic-level drama about desire, signs, and gender boundaries.
Li Zhi, as the critical "Other" and mirror image on Wu Zetian's path to power, played a complex and contradictory role: he was both the ladder of her ascent and the legitimate incarnation of the "Name-of-the-Father" she always had to confront and utilize. His weakness was not a flaw, but rather became the structural gap through which Wu Zetian's desire could manifest and be realized.
Wu Zetian, meanwhile, accomplished an extreme surfing at the core of the patriarchal symbolic order. She demonstrated how desire can drive a subject to exploit the fissures in existing symbolic systems (Li Zhi's illness, the ambiguous zones of imperial power operations) to conduct earth-shattering symbolic appropriation and reconstruction. Her success briefly proved that gender is not the absolute destiny of symbolic identity; her ultimate dilemma (the succession crisis) and posthumous symbolic rectification (the restoration of Tang) profoundly revealed the powerful resilience and exclusionary capacity of the existing symbolic order (the "Big Other").
Their story ultimately reveals a Lacanian truth: an individual can extremely challenge and distort the rules of the "Big Other," even temporarily occupying its central position, but the "Big Other" itself as a structure will always in some manner (through succession crises, through historical writing) reassert its authority, and absorb or diminish the challenger's traces into a legend of "exception." The blankness Wu Zetian left upon her Wordless Stele is precisely a silent and magnificent monument to this eternal struggle between human and signs, between women and patriarchy, between desire and law.
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