An X-ray of bound feet

A comparison between a woman with normal feet (left) and a woman with bound feet in 1902

Foot binding (simplified Chinese: 缠足; traditional Chinese: 纏足; pinyin: chánzú, literally "bound feet") was a custom practiced on young girls or females for approximately one thousand years in China, beginning in the 10th century and ending in the early 20th century. Pinyin, more formally Hanyu pinyin, is the most common Standard Mandarin Romanization system in use China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National

According to a study conducted by the University of California at San Francisco, "As the practice waned, some girls' feet were released after initial binding, leaving less severe deformities. The University of California San Francisco ( UCSF) is one of the world's leading centers of Health sciences research Patient care, and education " Some effects of foot binding are permanent. In the 1990s and 2000s some elderly Chinese women still suffered from disabilities related to bound feet. ^[1]

The custom is commonly cited by sociologists and anthropologists as an example where an extreme deformity (by the standards of both contemporary societies and from a medical viewpoint) can be viewed as beauty, and also where immense human suffering can be inflicted in the pursuit of a beauty standard. Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of

History

A bound foot

The actual origin of this practice is very vague and there are numerous accounts that each holds a different reason as to why foot binding came to be. These vary from text to text, from emulation of a particularly favoured concubine of a prince who had very small feet, to an empress who had club-like feet making her disfigurement into a desirable fashion. However there is little strong textual evidence prior to the court of the Southern Tang dynasty in Nanjing, which celebrates the fame of its dancing girls renowned for their tiny feet and beautiful bow shoes. The Tang Dynasty ( Middle Chinese: dhɑng (June 18 618&ndashJune 4 907 was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by ( Chinese: 南京 Romanizations Nánjīng ( Pinyin) Nan-ching ( Wade-Giles It was first present in the elite and eventually spread among the commoners. In Chinese foot binding, young girls' feet, usually at age 6 but often earlier, were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally; they would, instead, break and become highly deformed, not growing past 4-6 inches (10-15 cm). The foot is an Anatomical structure found in many Animals It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows Locomotion. As the girl reached adulthood, her feet would remain small and prone to infection, paralysis, and muscular atrophy. An infection is the detrimental Colonization of a host Organism by a foreign Species. Paralysed redirects here For other uses see xx Paralysed (disambiguation Paralysis is the complete loss of Muscle function Atrophy is the partial or complete Wasting away of a part of the Body. Though the process had made her completely incapable of any strenuous physical labour outside, or the ability to walk for great distances without aid, women with bound feet had no greater difficulty preparing meals or doing general household chores. This was initially a common practice only in the wealthiest parts of China, particularly in areas around northern China. However, by the late Qing Dynasty, foot binding had become popular among people of all social classes except among the poorest, who needed able-bodied women to work the fields, as well as Hakka women. Not to be confused with Qin Dynasty, the first dynasty of Imperial China The Hakkas ( Hakka language: Hak-kâ; Mandarin Chinese: Kèjiā) are a subgroup of the Han Chinese people who live predominantly As of the 1990s and 2000s it was cause of disability among some elderly Chinese women. The 1990s collectively refers to the years between and including 1990 and 1999 ^[1]

If a girl's feet were bound in this manner, four toes on each foot would break within a year; the first ("big toe") remained intact. Toes are the digits of the Foot of an animal Many animal species such as Cats walk on their toes and are described as being Digitigrade The hallux, commonly referred to as the big toe (also as great toe or thumb toe) even though it's not actually the biggest toe on the foot of some The arch had to be well-developed for the perfect "lotus foot" to be formed, so some women would bind their girls' feet at a later age; the ideal was a 3-in. foot (gold lotuses), and no longer than 4 in (10 cm), called silver lotuses. Bound feet would bend, becoming so concave they were sometimes described as "lotus hooks". The binding process resulted in intense pain and caused phalanges to fracture easily, and additionally resulted in an unsteady fashion of walking, referred to as the "lotus gait. Lotus Gait is a term referring to the type of Gait produced by the Chinese custom of Foot binding. "

The earliest recorded opponent to footbinding was a writer from the Song Dynasty (960-1279) called Ch'e Jo-shui. The Song Dynasty ( Wade-Giles: Sung Ch'ao was a ruling dynasty in China between 960&ndash1279 CE it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms

The Manchus who conquered China in the 17th century tried without success to abolish the practice. The Manchu people ( Manchu: Manju;, Mongolian: Манж Russian: Маньчжуры are a Tungusic people who originated in Manchu women were forbidden from binding their feet or the feet of their daughters. Instead they wore 'flower bowl' shoes which gave the illusion of tiny feet. Bound feet became an important differentiating marker between Manchu and Han. [1] One of the objectives of the Taiping Rebellion was to end footbinding in the name of gender equality. The Taiping Rebellion or Rebellion of Great Peace was a large-scale Revolt against the authority and forces of the Qing Government in China

The practice continued into the 20th century, when a combination of Chinese and Western missionaries called for reform and a true anti-footbinding movement emerged. See also Evangelism, Christianization A Christian mission has been widely defined since the Lausanne Congress of 1974 as that which Educated Chinese began to understand that it made them appear barbaric to foreigners, social Darwinists argued that it weakened the nation, for enfeebled women inevitably produced weak sons, and feminists attacked it because it caused women to suffer. Social Darwinism is a theory that competition among all individuals groups nations or ideas drives Social evolution in human societies Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements theories, and Philosophies which are concerned with the issue of Gender difference, advocate ^[2]. At the turn of the 20th century, gentry women, such as Kwan Siew-Wah, a unique pioneer feminist, advocated for the end of female foot-binding. Kwan herself refused the foot-binding imposed on her since her youth so that she could grow normal feet.

In 1911, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the new Republic of China government banned foot binding; women were told to unwrap their feet lest they be killed. REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES Some women's feet grew 1/2 - 1 inch after the unwrapping, though some found the new growth process extremely painful and emotionally and culturally devastating. Societies developed to support the abolition of footbinding, with contractual agreements between families promising their infant son in marriage to an infant daughter that would not have her feet bound. When the Communists took power in 1949, they maintained the strict prohibition on footbinding, which is still in effect today.

Reception and appeal

A Chinese woman with her feet unwrapped

Bound feet were considered intensely erotic. Qing Dynasty sex manuals listed 48 different ways of playing with women's bound feet. ^[3] Some men preferred never to see a woman's bound feet, as they were always concealed within tiny "lotus shoes". Feng Xun is recorded as stating, "If you remove the shoes and bindings, the aesthetic feeling will be destroyed forever. " For them, the erotic effect was a function of the lotus gait, the tiny steps and swaying walk of a woman whose feet had been bound. Lotus Gait is a term referring to the type of Gait produced by the Chinese custom of Foot binding. The very fact that the bound foot was concealed from men's eyes was, in and of itself, sexually appealing. On the other hand, an uncovered foot would also give off an alluring scent, as various fungi would colonise the unwashable folds. Athlete's foot, also called Tinea Pedis, is a Parasitic fungal infection of the epidermis of the human foot The other primary attribute of a woman having bound feet was to limit her mobility, altering the means by which females were allowed to be a part of the world at large. It also gave the woman an irreversible dependency on her family. Thus bound feet became an alluring symbol of chastity, as a bound foot woman was largely restricted to her home and could not venture far without an escort to help her, thus denying any advances upon her and ensuring her total devotion to her husband.

Process

A bandaged bound foot

Schema of an x-ray comparison between an unbound and bound foot

A mother or grandmother started to bind her daughter's or granddaughter's feet when the child was around 4-7 years old. The process was started before the arch of the foot had a chance to properly develop. Binding usually started during the winter months so that the feet were numb, meaning the pain would not be as extreme ^[4].

First, each foot would be soaked in a warm mixture of herbs and animal blood. This concoction caused any necrotised flesh to fall off ^[5]. Then her toenails were cut back as far as possible to prevent ingrowth and subsequent infections. To prepare her for what was to come next the girl's feet were delicately massaged. Silk or cotton bandages, ten feet long and two inches wide, were prepared by soaking them in the same blood and herb mix as before. Each of the toes were then broken and wrapped in the wet bandages, which would constrict when drying, and pulled tightly downwards toward the heel. There may have been deep cuts made in the sole to facilitate this ^[6].

This ritual would be repeated every two days, with fresh bindings. Every time the bandages were rebound they would be pulled tighter making this process continually painful. The most common ailment of bound feet was infection. Toenails would ingrow and could lead to flesh rotting, occasionally causing the toes to drop off. Disease inevitably followed infection meaning that death could result from foot binding. Occasionally, the ball of the foot would grow directly into the heel. As the girl grew older, she was more at risk from medical problems. Older women were more likely to break hips and other bones in falls and were less able to stand up from sitting. ^[7]

Foot binding in literature and film

The bound foot has played a prominent part in many works of literature, both Chinese and foreign. These depictions are sometimes based on observation or research and sometimes on rumor or supposition. This is only to be expected when a practice is so emotionally charged, especially when Western authors are writing about China. Sometimes, as in the case of Pearl Buck's The Good Earth the accounts are relatively neutral. Pearl S Buck ( Traditional Chinese: 賽珍珠 Simplified Chinese: 赛珍珠 Pinyin: Sài Zhēnzhū ( June 26, The Good Earth is a Novel by Pearl S Buck published in 1931 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932.

Anchee Min describes a graphic depiction of a young girl's foot binding in Becoming Madame Mao. Anchee Min (閔安琪 Mín Ānqí born January 14, 1957) is a painter, Photographer, Musician, and Author who lives in Becoming Madame Mao (2001 Mariner Books ISBN 0-618-12700-3 is a Historical novel by Anchee Min detailing the life of Jiang Qing.

Lisa See has read widely and writes about foot binding in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love. Lisa See is a Chinese American writer and novelist One-eighth Chinese the Chinese side of her family has had a great impact on her life and work. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan a novel by Lisa See (2005 is set in China in the 1800s Peony in Love is the most recent of Lisa See ' s five novels Her first three ( Flower Net, The Interior

Li Juzhen (1763-1830) wrote a satirical novel Jinghua yuan, translated as Flowers in the Mirror which includes a visit to the mythical Kingdom of Women. There it is the men who must bear children, menstruate, and bind their feet. The recent Chinese author Feng Jicai's (b. 1942) novel Three Inch Golden Lotus presents a satirical picture of the movement to abolish the practice.

In the novel and miniseries Broken Trail, by Alan Geoffrion, one of the young Chinese slaves has bound feet and relies heavily on others for support while walking. Broken Trail is a June 2006 Emmy Award -winning Revisionist Western Miniseries that originally aired on American Movie Classics Alan Geoffrion is the author and screenwriter of the novel and AMC mini-series Broken Trail (2006 - Fulcrum Publishing)

See also

• Attraction to disability
• Artificial cranial deformation
• Body modification
• Corset
• Sexual fetishism
• Female genital cutting
• Violence against women

Notes

References

• Dorothy Ko, Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005.
• Dorothy Ko, Every Step a Lotus: Shoes for Bound Feet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Catalogue of a museum exhibit, with extensive comments.
• Beverley Jackson Splendid Slippers - A Thousand Years of an Erotic Tradition: Ten Speed Press
• Howard S. Levy, The Lotus Lovers: Prometheus Books, New York, 1992
• Eugene E. Berg, , M. D. Chinese Footbinding. Radiology Review - Orthopaedic Nursing 24, no. 5 (September/October) 66-67
• Marie Vento, [2]One Thousand Years of Chinese Footbinding: Its Origins, Popularity and Demise
• The Virtual Museum of The City of San Francisco, [3]
• Ping, Wang. Wang Ping is a Chinese-American author and academic Ping's writings center around the past and present of China and the experiences of Chinese immigrants in America Aching for Beauty: Footbinding in China. New York: Anchor Books, 2002.

Fictional accounts

• Li Ju-chen [Li Ruzhen], Flowers in the Mirror translated, edited by Lin Tai-yi (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965).
• Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan: A novel (New York: Random House, 2005)
• Jicai Feng (translated from the Chinese by David Wakefield), The Three-Inch Golden Lotus (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994).
• Kathryn Harrison, The Binding Chair, or, a Visit from the Foot Emancipation Society: A Novel (New York: Random House, 2000).

Further reading

• Fan Hong, Footbinding, Feminism and Freedom (Frank Cass, London, 1997)

External links

• Information about Lotus shoes and foot binding from a footwear history site
• "Chinese Girl with Bound Feet" Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco.
• Page about Chinese foot binding
• Page from thinkquest
• Another page on foot binding
• A photograph