Chinese Foot Binding: Fashion or Torture?
We posted a while back about Grandma’s little shoes and here are some additional pictures and information about the old Chinese fashion trend that had woman torture themselves to fit into tiny little shoes.
Foot binding was practiced in China for 1000 years. Young girls would have their feet wrapped, thus limiting the normal development and essentially crippling them.
Today, it is a prominent cause of disability among elderly Chinese women.
Foot binding (Simplified Chinese: ç¼ è¶³; Traditional Chinese: çºè¶³; Hanyu Pinyin: chánzú, literally “bound feet”) also known as kack put, was a custom practiced on young females for approximately one thousand years in China, beginning in the 10th century and ending in the early 20th century.
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. As the girl reached adulthood, her feet would remain small and dysfunctional, prone to infection, paralysis, and muscular atrophy.
This was initially a common practice only in the wealthiest parts of China, particularly in North China. However, by the late Qing Dynasty, foot binding had become popular among people of all social classes except the poorest of peasants, who needed able-bodied women to work the fields.
View some of the pictures here:
By Sun Tzu on 20-05-2007
Comment by Eoghan
May 20th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
Well, I’ve officially read your entire site in one sitting. 12 hour shifts do that.
Keep it up, and please – no more reports of baby-eating.
Comment by Sun Tzu
May 20th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Thank you for the compliment of reading so many of our articles. We are very happy to hear you enjoy the site and we will do our best to keep baby eating to a minimum.
Comment by Heather
August 12th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
I am so happy that I’m not born in those times…
Comment by Rebecca
December 17th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
It was all in the name of vain fashion.
Comment by raelene
March 14th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
who would start something like this really? (renactment) “oww i have a fantsic idear lets all hurt our slefs and mank us have timny feet?” crazy peson said “ya that a grat idar let do it yay where soo pretty with small feet” the rest if the crazy ppl how started it relped??
Comment by raelene
March 14th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
tell me about it
Comment by luckylife333
May 12th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Can’t see the picture!
Comment by Anju
August 8th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
After awhile, it became a vain fashion statement. Originally, however, the practice started in richer households. Since women were considered property, when they were arranged to marry, this symbolized that they were wealthy because it made the girl practically immobile, so she couldn’t and didn’t have to do a lot of manual labor because they would have servants. The poor families would need all their children, male or female to help around the farm, etc.
It is also said that it was a symbol of reassurance for the future husbands that the girl with bound feet would have a harder time running off with another man.
After awhile, people just associated bound feet to being demure and lady-like. Thus, it became a vain fashion statement. Which isn’t too different from women wearing super high heels today for the sake of fashion. It was just to a greater degree.
Comment by marielle
August 20th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
my 5th grade teacher told me that they did that because they believed women with little feet are beautiful…
Comment by akira
November 23rd, 2008 at 9:34 am
this stupid tradition started because an emperor had a fetish about small feet on women and ordered that this was the measuring stick for beauty. needless to say, thousands of the nobility had their daughter’s feet bound. to force the more resilient member of the society, they condemned rich women with unbound feet. declaring them unfit to be wives which was like the most shameful place to be at that time.
Comment by bob
January 7th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
wow…the pictures scare me lol. but i wouldnt have done that. pretty or not…
Comment by rachael
June 7th, 2010 at 4:04 am
it scares me to that is horrible just imagine the paim
n the little kids are in gosh thats is why im glad i live in america the land of the free