Strangest Mysteries of the World and Beyond !

Foot Binding

Foot Binding

 

Foot binding began late in the T'ang Dynasty (618-906) and it gradually spread through the upper class during the Song Dynasty (960-1297). During the Ming period (1368-1644) and the Ching Dynasty (1644-1911) the custom of foot binding spread through the overwhelming majority of the Chinese population until it was finally outlawed in the 1911 Revolution of Sun Yat-Sen.

In fact, the only peoples to avoid this custom were the Manchu conquerors, The Hakka Chinese migrant groups in south China and the mean people, the lowest class of people in China who were below the social norms. The practice of foot binding lasted for approximately one thousand years. During this time, approximately one billion women had their feet bound.

So exactly what is foot binding? In a nutshell it was an attempt to stop the growth of the feet. It usually began somewhere between the ages of four and seven.

Possibly even later if the family was poor and needed their daughter to do work around the house or farm. A bandage, ten feet long and two inches wide was wrapped tightly around thc foot, forcing the four small toes under the sole of the foot. This made the feet narrower but at the same time it made the feet shorter because it also forced the big toe and the heel closer together by bowing the arch of the foot. The bandage was tightened each day and the girl was put into progressively smaller and smaller sized shoes. The entire process usually took about two years at the end of which the feet were essentially dead and utterly useless.

Binding the feet was the easy part, being bent so out of shape the feet required lots of core. Thc feet had to be washed and manicured on a daily basis. If they weren't manicured properly the toe nails could cut into the instep and infection could set in. If the bindings were too tight they could cut off circulation which could lead to gangrene and blood poisoning.

The feet had to be massaged and given hot and cold compresses to help relieve the pain and help improve circulation. If all this isn't bad enough, corns would develop on the toes that were bent under and would have to be cut off with a knife.

With the lack of circulation flesh would rot and fall off and sometimes the toes would ooze pus. The pain was said to have been excruciating especially if this process was begun at a later age. The ideal foot would fit into a shoe only three to four inches long.

 A Chinese saying says, "Every pair of small feet costs a bath (kang) of tears". It is difficult to imagine the suffering that these women had to endure.

There are several legends that endeavor to account for the inception of this custom, one is that the concubine of a Chinese prince named Yao Niang walked so gracefully that it seemed as if she "skimmed over the top of golden lilies. " At that time the "lily footed woman" or a woman with bound feet became the model in China. A second legend says that this concubine, Yao Niang, was ordered to bind her feet so that her feet would look like new moons. A third legend says that women bound their feet out of sympathy for an Empress with club feet. Another account is that foot binding was made stylish by court dancers, However this seems somewhat unlikely because women with bound feet had a hard time walking let alone dancing. Foot binding stopped concubines and wives of the rich from straying or running away from beatings. Confucian teachings at this time stressed the superior status of men over women as a basic element of social order and this was certainly an effective method of restraint.

Foot binding began as a luxury among the rich; it made the women more dependent on others and less useful around the house. This was especially hard on the poor who needed help around the house or farm. It soon became a prerequisite for marriage. It was even a just reason for a man to call off marriage if he found out that the woman that had been arranged for him to marry did not have bound feet. It came that foot binding was the only right thing to do for a daughter, Many lower class families who really could not afford to bind their daughters feet, due to the loss of labor she would have contributed to the family, did so an anyway in hopes that she would be able to "marry up" into the middle class. It is sad because there are very few accounts of women who were successful. These women would end up suffering trying to work in the fields tottering on their bound feet.

In 1895, the first anti-foot binding society was formed in Shanghai. Soon after branches of the anti-foot binding society began to form in other major cities and across the country. The main point of the anti-foot binding society was that the pain a woman went through in the foot binding process and through her life was an obstacle to her education. Society members would not bind their daughters feet and would register with the society the names and ages of all their children. This way all registered members were able to find mates for their children. Registered members were not allowed to let their children marry women with bound feet. They were allowed to many nonmembers but only if they did not have bound feet. Finally in 1911 with the revolution of sun Yat-Sen foot binding was officially outlawed. Thus, the end of foot binding was at hand.

The order to stop binding met with mixed success, especially in rural areas where large feet were still considered highly unattractive and unacceptable. Many women struggled not only with the possibility of becoming social outcasts, but also feared undergoing another period of great inconvenience and agonizing pain. To avoid physical and emotional trauma, releasing bound feet had to be done slowly, by loosening the bindings on a regular basis and allowing the feet to gradually resume a more normal shape. Women who had not bound tightly were able to release their feet without great discomfort. Others who had achieved the highly desired three-inch feet found it impossible, for in so doing they would have been left completely crippled. In urban areas where jobs and education were more available, the practice faded rapidly as women began to demand more rights and to play a role in the financial welfare of the family.

In most of China, however, social and sexual customs were resistant to rapid change, and for millions of women it wasn't until the years following the Communist revolution in 1949 that the perpetuation of footbinding finally ended.