Foot-binding

The History Of Footbinding

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Foot-binding is said to have been inspired by a tenth-century court dancer named Yao Niang who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon.

She entranced the Emperor Li Yu, by dancing on her toes inside a six-foot golden lotus, festooned with ribbons and precious stones.

In addition to altering the shape of the foot, the practice also produced a particular sort of gait that relied on the thigh and buttock muscles for support.

From the start, foot-binding was imbued with erotic overtones. Gradually, other court ladies, with money, time and a void to fill, took up foot-binding, making it a status symbol among the elite.

A small foot in China, was basically no different from a tiny waist in Victorian England.

For families with marriageable daughters, foot size translated into its own form of currency, and a means of achieving upward mobility.

The most desirable bride possessed a three-inch foot, known as a “golden lotus.”

It was respectable to have four-inch feet, a silver lotus, but feet five inches or longer were dismissed as iron lotuses.

The marriage prospects for a girl with iron lotus feet, were dim indeed.

The process had to begin in childhood when a girl was just 5 or 6 years old.

Mothers, grandmothers, or older female relatives would carry out the process from start to finish.

First, her feet were plunged into hot water and her toenails clipped short.

Then the feet were massaged and oiled before all the toes, except the big toes, were broken and bound flat against the sole, making a triangle shape.

Next, her arch was strained as the foot was bent double.

Finally, the feet were bound in place using a silk strip measuring ten feet long and two inches wide.

These wrappings were briefly removed every two days to prevent blood and pus from infecting the foot.

Sometimes “excess” flesh was cut away or encouraged to rot. The girls were forced to walk long distances in order to hasten the breaking of their arches.

Over time the wrappings became tighter and the shoes smaller as the heel and sole were crushed together.

After two years the process was complete, creating a deep cleft that could hold a coin in place.

Once a foot had been crushed and bound, the shape could not be reversed without a woman undergoing the same pain all over again.

Some early evidence for footbinding comes from the tomb of Lady Huang Sheng, the wife of an imperial clansman.

Lady Huang Sheng died in 1243, and when archaeologists opened her tomb, they discovered tiny, misshapen feet that had been wrapped in gauze and placed inside specially shaped “lotus shoes.”

Footbinding was viewed as a rite of passage for young girls and was believed to be preparation for puberty, menstruation, and childbirth.

Footbinding also held the popular belief that it increased fertility because the blood would flow up to the legs, hips, and vaginal areas.

It symbolized a girl’s willingness to obey, just as it limited the mobility and power of females, kept women subordinate to men, and increased the differences between the sexes.

Though utterly rejected in China now ~ the last shoe factory making lotus shoes closed in 1999, footbinding survived for a thousand years in part because of women’s emotional investment in the practice.

Despite the pain, millions of Chinese women stood firm in their devotion to the tradition of footbinding.

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https://www.smithsonianmag.com/.../why-footbinding.../

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https://ko-fi.com/thetudorintruders