There have been numerous folktales about how the traditional practice of binding feet began. Some say that in the tenth
century of China, there was a very tyrannical Emperor who mistreated the peasants. One day, he conscripted all the male
peasants, irregardless of age or infirmities, to build him a pleasure boat. As a result of the hard labour, an infirm old man
died. His daughter, a beautiful young girl, hungered for revenge.
Knowing that the emperor was a lascivious man, she sought to dress herself up attractively. In order to make herself
conspicuous, she bound her feet until they were only three inches long and wore beautifully made silk shoes. Under the soles
of her shoes, she concealed a three-inch knife that she had specially constructed to kill the tyrant.
Begging a favour from a minor court official, she managed to get a job as a boat-rower (where beautiful women turned
decorative paddles; the real rowing was done by male slaves). Enthralled by her tiny feet, the emperor chose her as one of
his companions for the night. As soon as she got near the emperor (tottering on her tiny feet), she retrieved the knife
attached to the bottom of her three-inch shoes and tried to stab the emperor. Pandemonium broke out on the deck as no man
attending the king (he was paranoid about his safety) could carry knives by the king. Just as it looked as though the female
assassin would stab the emperor in the neck, she lost her balance (not being used to the painful binding of the feet) and was
stabbed by the emperor.
To pay tribute to the filial piety and the valour of this young girl (she was believed to be no more than fifteen), women in
the region began to bind their feet, at the behest of their husbands. Probably, the actual reason behind the beginning of
this practice were male fetishes, which was the same reason why the emperor was attracted to this young girl in the first
place.
There is a second folktale as to how the practice of foot-binding came about. Similarly, in the tenth century in China, the
favourite concubine of a prince had unusually small feet. (Today we would call this a deformity). They were only three-inches
long. This prince was so enamoured by his concubine that he named them san chun jin lian, literally three-inch golden lily.
He had special silk shoes made for her, called lotus shoes. In honour of his concubine, this prince ordered that all noble
women had to bind their feet. Thus traditional Chinese values for over 1000 years dictated that the feet of young girls
should be bound to keep them small and delicate. Lily feet, as they were called, were thought to be dainty and beautiful and
a symbol of gentility and high-class.
Many simply think the practice of binding feet to be one of feudalistic mentality. They simply do not comprehend how cruel
the practice actually was. It began when a girl was between three and eleven years old. First her foot was washed in hot
water and massaged. Then the child's toes were turned under and pressed against the bottom of her foot. The arches were
broken as the foot was pulled straight with the leg, and a long narrow cotton bandage would be tightly wound around the foot
from the toes to the ankle to hold the toes in place.
After two or three years, a girl's feet actually shrank -- until they could fit into shoes just three inches long. This
resulted in feet that were very deformed and unbearably painful to walk on. Sometimes the toes even fell off, because blood
could no longer reach them. Besides identifying women of gentility or high-class, it prevented women from "wandering," since
the bound with bound feet was unable to walk unassisted, and even going a short distance was very painful. These women had to
walk with very short mincing steps and could stand only with great difficulty.
In the upper classes in China, a good marriage wound be impossible to arrange if the girl had "big ugly feet." The practice
of foot binding continued in Chin a for over 1000 years until the Manchu Dynasty was toppled in 1911 and the new republic was
formed. Foot binding was then outlawed.
We pondered what the driving force behind such a queer desire was. It can only be complex. Throughout a couple's marriage, an
average Chinese man would never see his wife's feet without the white bandages covering them. He might know what every other
part of the woman's body looked like, but the feet were literally shrouded in mystery. We surmise that in addition to the
fetish men have for feet, this mysteriousness also appealed to them. The fact that bound feet kept women immobile could also
be why domineering husbands approved of it. This kept them from straying beyond the household.
On the woman's part, perhaps it had to do with status and duty. If a woman belonged to a noble family, it would disgrace the
family name for her to have unbound feet. It is every woman's duty to keep the family honour and to make her father proud by
making a good marriage. Also, there is the concept of the beauty. All over the world, women put themselves through painful
procedures in the name of beauty and fashion. In the west, there was the practice of wearing restrictive corsets. In Africa,
there was the practice of wearing heavy chains around the neck to elongate it. Similarly, in China, women bound their feet,
following their foremothers of a thousand years, because three-inch feet were considered beautiful.
In our world today, there are very few women left with bound feet. Veterans of this practice would all be ninety-plus old
women. As a result of this practice, they face numerous medical problems like rheumatism and some have even had to have their
feet amputated. Worst of all was the fact that in their entire life, except for those wonderful first ten years of their
lives, they never had the freedom of painless mobility.
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