News > > Chinese Foot Binding: Fashion or Torture?
 
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.

footbinding Chinese Foot Binding: Fashion or Torture? picture

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: 纏足; 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.

X-ray of bound feet.

View some of the pictures here:

YouTube Preview Image

Here is a video of a young girl walking with her feet bound:

YouTube Preview Image

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9 Comments »

Comment by Eoghan
2007-05-20 21:01:45

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
2007-05-20 21:05:41

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
2007-08-12 12:50:49

I am so happy that I’m not born in those times…

Comment by raelene
2008-03-14 21:09:28

tell me about it

 
 
Comment by Rebecca
2007-12-17 15:20:07

It was all in the name of vain fashion.

 
Comment by raelene
2008-03-14 21:09:03

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 Anju
2008-08-08 16:38:19

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 luckylife333
2008-05-12 18:44:45

Can’t see the picture!

 
Comment by marielle
2008-08-20 16:18:04

my 5th grade teacher told me that they did that because they believed women with little feet are beautiful…

 
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