Foot binding (simplified Chinese: 缠足; traditional Chinese: 纏足; pinyin: chánzú), or footbinding, was the Chinese custom of breaking and tightly binding the feet of young girls to change their shape and size. Feet altered by foot binding were known as lotus feet and the shoes made for them were known as lotus shoes. In late imperial China, bound feet were considered a status symbol and a mark of feminine beauty. Foot binding was a painful practice that limited the mobility of women and resulted in lifelong disabilities.
The prevalence and practice of foot binding varied over time, by region, and by social class. The practice may have originated among court dancers during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period in 10th-century China and gradually became popular among the elite during the Song dynasty, later spreading to lower social classes by the Qing dynasty (1644–1912). Manchu emperors attempted to ban the practice in the 17th century but failed. In some areas, foot binding raised marriage prospects. It has been estimated that by the 19th century 40–50% of all Chinese women may have had bound feet, rising to almost 100% among upper-class Han Chinese women. Frontier ethnic groups such as Uyghurs, Manchus, Mongols, and Tibetans generally did not practice footbinding. In some regions, Han Chinese influence spread the practice to non-Han women, such as the Hui people.
Chinese reformers as well as Christian missionaries challenged the practice in the late 19th century, and the practice began to die out in the early 20th century, following the efforts of anti-foot binding campaigns. Upper-class and urban women dropped the practice sooner than poorer rural women. By 2007, only a handful of elderly Chinese women whose feet had been bound were still alive.
History
Origin
There are a number of stories about the origin of foot binding before its establishment during the Song dynasty. One of these accounts is of Pan Yunu, a favourite consort of the Southern Qi Emperor Xiao Baojuan. In the story, Pan Yunu, renowned for having delicate feet, performed a dance barefoot on a floor decorated with the design of a golden lotus. The Emperor, expressing admiration, said that "lotus springs from her every step!" (bù bù shēng lián 歩歩生蓮), a reference to the Buddhist legend of Padmavati, under whose feet lotus springs forth. This story may have given rise to the terms 'golden lotus' or 'lotus feet' used to describe bound feet; there is no evidence, however, that Consort Pan ever bound her feet.
An early story of foot binding suggests it was used in a dance similar to ballet. This story indicates that footbinding may have originated during the reign of the 10th-century Emperor Li Yu of the Southern Tang, just before the Song dynasty. Li Yu created a 1.8-meter-tall (6 ft) golden lotus decorated with precious stones and pearls and asked his concubine Yao Niang (窅娘) to bind her feet in white silk into the shape of the crescent moon. She wraps silken ribbons around her feet, like a modern ballet dancer, then dances on her toes. Yao Niang's dance was said to be so graceful that others sought to imitate her. The binding of feet was then replicated by other upper-class women and the practice spread.
Some of the earliest possible references to foot binding appear around 1100, when a couple of poems seemed to allude to the practice. Soon after 1148, in the earliest extant discourse on the practice of foot binding, scholar Zhang Bangji wrote that a bound foot should be arch-shaped and small. He observed that "women's foot binding began in recent times; it was not mentioned in any books from previous eras." In the 13th century, scholar Che Ruoshui wrote the first known criticism of the practice: "Little girls not yet four or five years old, who have done nothing wrong, nevertheless are made to suffer unlimited pain to bind [their feet] small. I do not know what use this is."
The earliest archeological evidence for foot binding dates to the tombs of Huang Sheng, who died in 1243 at the age of 17, and Madame Zhou, who died in 1274. Each woman's remains showed feet bound with gauze strips measuring 1.8 m (6 ft) in length. Zhou's skeleton, particularly well preserved, showed that her feet fit into the narrow, pointed slippers that were buried with her. The style of bound feet found in Song dynasty tombs, where the big toe was bent upwards, appears to be different from the 'three-inch golden lotus' of later eras.
Later eras
At the end of the Song dynasty, men would drink from a special shoe, the heel of which contained a small cup. During the Yuan dynasty some would also drink directly from the shoe itself. This practice was called 'toast to the golden lotus' and lasted until the late Qing dynasty.
The first European to mention foot binding was the Italian missionary Odoric of Pordenone in the 14th century, during the Yuan dynasty. However no other foreign visitors to Yuan China mentioned the practice, including Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo (who nevertheless noted the dainty walk of Chinese women, who took very small steps), perhaps an indication that it was not a widespread or extreme practice at that time. The Mongols themselves did not practice footbinding but it was permitted for their Chinese subjects. The practice became increasingly common among the gentry families, later spreading to the general populace, as commoners and theatre actors alike adopted foot binding. By the Ming period the practice was no longer the preserve of the gentry but it was considered a status symbol. As foot binding restricted the movement of a woman, one side effect of its rising popularity was the corresponding decline of the art of women's dance in China, and it became increasingly rare to hear about beauties and courtesans who were also great dancers after the Song era.
Archeological evidence suggests that footbinding became more popular in the late Ming, and the form of footbinding also changed. Analyses of women's remains in some Ming dynasty tombs found only mild forms of footbinding or no footbinding at all, while in other tombs the debilitating practice of altering the shape of foot bones had appeared by the late Ming period. The idea of three-inch bound feet is also believed to have originated during the Ming dynasty, suggesting that the more severe form of footbinding started in this period.
The Manchus issued a number of edicts to ban the practice, first in 1636 when the Manchu leader Hong Taiji declared the founding of the new Qing dynasty, then in 1638, and another in 1664 by the Kangxi Emperor. Few Han Chinese complied with the edicts, and Kangxi eventually abandoned the effort in 1668. By the 19th century, it was estimated that 40–50% of Chinese women had bound feet. Among upper class Han Chinese women, the figure was almost 100%. Bound feet became a mark of beauty and were also a prerequisite for finding a husband. They also became an avenue for poorer women to marry up in some areas, such as Sichuan. In late 19th century Guangdong it was customary to bind the feet of the eldest daughter of a lower-class family who was intended to be brought up as a lady. Her younger sisters would grow up to be bond-servants or domestic slaves and be able to work in the fields, but the eldest daughter would be assumed never to have the need to work. Women, their families and their husbands took great pride in tiny feet, with the ideal length, called the 'Golden Lotus', being about three Chinese inches (寸) long—around 11 cm (4.3 in). This pride was reflected in the elegantly embroidered silk slippers and wrappings girls and women wore to cover their feet. Handmade shoes served to exhibit the embroidery skill of the wearer as well. These shoes also served as support, as some women with bound feet might not have been able to walk without the support of their shoes and would have been severely limited in their mobility. Contrary to missionary writings, many women with bound feet were able to walk and work in the fields, albeit with greater limitations than their non-bound counterparts.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were dancers with bound feet as well as circus performers who stood on prancing or running horses. Women with bound feet in one village in Yunnan Province formed a regional dance troupe to perform for tourists in the late 20th century, though age has since forced the group to retire. In other areas, women in their 70s and 80s assisted in the rice fields (albeit in a limited capacity) even into the early 21st century.
Decline
Opposition to foot binding had been raised by some Chinese writers in the 18th century. In the mid-19th century, many of the leaders of the Taiping Rebellion were men of Hakka background whose women did not bind their feet, and they outlawed foot binding in areas under their control. However the rebellion failed and Christian missionaries, who had provided education for girls and actively discouraged what they considered a barbaric practice that had deleterious social effect on women, then played a part in changing elite opinion on foot binding through education, pamphleteering and lobbying of the Qing court, as no other culture in the world practised the custom of foot binding.
The earliest-known Western anti-foot binding society was formed in Amoy (Xiamen) in 1874. 60–70 Christian women in Xiamen attended a meeting presided over by a missionary, John MacGowan, and formed the Natural Foot Society (Tianzu Hui (天足会), literally Heavenly Foot Society). MacGowan held the view that foot binding was a serious problem that called into doubt the whole of Chinese civilization; he felt that "the nefarious civilization interferes with Divine Nature." Members of the Heavenly Foot Society vowed not to bind their daughters' feet. In 1895, Christian women in Shanghai led by Alicia Little, also formed a Natural Foot Society. Little had once sought help from Han Chinese officials of the Qing dynasty, but with little success. The Qing official Li Hongzhang told her meaningfully:"If women's feet are liberated, they will become strong, men are already strong, if that happens, they will join forces and overthrow the Qing dynasty." It was also championed by the Woman's Christian Temperance Movement founded in 1883 and advocated by missionaries including Timothy Richard, who thought that Christianity could promote equality between the sexes. This missionary-led opposition had stronger impacts than earlier Han or Manchu opposition. Western missionaries established the first schools for girls, and encouraged women to end the practice of foot binding. Christian missionaries did not conceal their shock and disgust either when explaining the process of foot binding to Western peers and their descriptions shocked their audience back home.
Reform-minded Chinese intellectuals began to consider foot binding to be an aspect of their culture that needed to be eliminated. In 1883, Kang Youwei founded the Anti-footbinding Society near Canton to combat the practice, and anti-foot binding societies appeared across the country, with membership for the movement claimed to reach 300,000. The anti-foot binding movement stressed pragmatic and patriotic reasons rather than feminist ones, arguing that abolition of foot binding would lead to better health and more efficient labour. Kang Youwei submitted a petition to the throne commenting on the fact that China had become a joke to foreigners and that "footbinding was the primary object of such ridicule."
Reformers such as Liang Qichao, influenced by Social Darwinism, also argued that it weakened the nation, since enfeebled women supposedly produced weak sons. In his "On Women's Education", Liang Qichao asserts that the root cause of national weakness inevitably lies in the lack of education for women. Qichao connected education for women and foot binding: "As long as foot binding remains in practice, women's education can never flourish." Qichao was also disappointed that foreigners had opened the first schools as he thought that the Chinese should be teaching Chinese women. At the turn of the 20th century, early feminists, such as Qiu Jin, called for the end of foot binding. In 1906, Zhao Zhiqian wrote in Beijing Women's News to blame women with bound feet for being a national weakness in the eyes of other nations. Many members of anti-foot binding groups pledged to not bind their daughters' feet nor to allow their sons to marry women with bound feet. In 1902, Empress Dowager Cixi issued an anti-foot binding edict, but it was soon rescinded.