In the old days, there was a bad habit of wrapping a girl's feet tightly with long strips of cloth. In order to make the feet smaller, it would cause deformity of the foot bones.
Foot binding, also called footbinding, began at the end of the Five Dynasties. From the cultural relics and ancient documents excavated underground, we know that before the Five Dynasties, men's and women's shoes were of the same shape. During the reign of Li Yu, the empress of the Southern Tang Dynasty in the Five Dynasties, he indulged in sex, poetry, singing and dancing, and drank and had fun with his concubines all day long. There was a concubine named Yao Niang in the palace. She was originally the daughter of an official family. Later, due to the ruin of her family, she became a singing girl in Jinling. She was slim, good at singing and dancing, and was favored by Li Yu. Li Yu ordered the construction of a golden lotus platform, six feet high, decorated with treasures, netted with tassels, and various kinds of lotus flowers were installed in Taichung. Ask Niang Yao to bind her feet with silk, bend her feet upwards to make a crescent moon shape, wear plain stockings and dance in the lotus, whirling like a flying cloud. Li Yu couldn't help but be happy after seeing it. After that, in order to maintain and improve the unique skills of this dance and stabilize her favored status, Yao Niang often used white silk to wrap her feet tightly. Over time, she wrapped her feet into a "red diamond shape" and a "crescent shape". The dancing posture is also more natural and beautiful. People at that time competed to imitate it, and after five generations it gradually became a trend and became popular throughout society.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, Old Man Taiping further commented in his book "The Brocade in the Sleeves": "There are three things in modern times that are unparalleled in ancient times: 'Luohua, Jiancha, and Women's Feet'." It can be seen that the Northern Song Dynasty During this period, women's bound feet were regarded as wonders of the world along with Luoyang's gorgeous peonies and Jianzhou's fragrant tea! In the early years of the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhao Lingshi wrote a poem "Huanxisha", one of which said: "Three-inch golden lotus shoes for stable small bows." From then on, "three-inch golden lotus" became a synonym for women's small feet. By the late Southern Song Dynasty, foot-binding was becoming more common among women. By the Yuan Dynasty, it was considered a shame for women not to bind their feet. Women's foot binding did not start in the Qing Dynasty. It has been pushed back to the Five Dynasties or the early Song Dynasty. Anyway, people in the Tang Dynasty did not bind their feet. The practice of foot binding flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
In the Song Dynasty, only noble women bound their feet, while ordinary women did not. Moreover, the requirement for bound feet at that time was only to be straight and straight, and it would not cause severe injuries to the muscles and bones in later generations.
It is said that women in ancient times bound their feet because Li Yu, the empress of the Southern Tang Dynasty, liked to watch women dancing on the "golden lotus". Because the gold lotus was too small, the dancers would wrap their feet in white silk. Standing bent on it, it looks graceful, graceful and graceful when dancing. It was originally a dance costume, and then slowly spread from the harem to the upper class society. Later, folk women followed suit one after another, and gradually became a common social custom and became A morbid aesthetic.
For women, beauty is important. It is an important means and way to achieve a better life. As for whether you can walk, who cares?
Why is foot binding popular in China? There are roughly two reasons. One is the influence of the ruler's will on the people of the world, and the other is the appreciation and praise of cultural people. Foot binding has its origins and is related to rulers. It is said that foot binding originated from Li Yu, the empress of the Southern Tang Dynasty who sang "When will the spring flowers and autumn moon come?" His concubines tied their feet with cloth into a crescent shape and danced on the lotus made of gold. Empress Li Thinking this was the most beautiful thing, footbinding began in the harem, and later spread to the people. As long as the emperor likes something, it will be popular among the people. The emperor of the Tang Dynasty loved Taoist culture. Later, Empress Li liked women with small feet, so foot binding became popular. There are several theories about the origin of foot binding. Some say it started with Pan Yunu, the deposed imperial concubine of Qi in the Southern Dynasty, some say it started with the late Tang Dynasty, some said it started with Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty, etc., but all of them are without exception. Relations with the rulers also explain this reason.
In addition to the will of the ruler, it is the influence of literati on social customs. Women in ancient times paid great attention to their headwear, and then their feet. The idioms "Taking the head and the feet" and "Taking the head and the feet" both mean discussing women's appearance and body. The head and feet have become an important standard of female beauty in the eyes of educated people. Cultural people have many words of praise for small feet, such as "Golden Lotus", "Three-inch Golden Lotus", "Fragrant Hook", etc., are all words of praise given to small feet by cultural people. Su Dongpo's "Bodhisattva Man" has a poem about feet that says: "Slimness is difficult to say, it must be seen from the palm of your hand", and even formulated seven standards for the beauty of small feet: thin, small, pointed, curved, fragrant, soft and straight, and also summarized the "seven beauties" of small feet: shape, quality , talent, god, fatness, softness, beauty, it is really profound and profound.
The most standard type is 3 cm wide and 10 cm long [the so-called three-inch golden lotus]
A pair of bound feet, if larger than 4 inches, is called "iron lotus"; If it is within 4 inches, it is called "Anemone"; if it is only 3 inches, it is called "Golden Lotus".
The tortured woman with bound feet could only use a leaf called "Crystal Phoenix Flower" to apply on the rotten flesh to slightly relieve the pain.
Binding feet, in ancient times It usually starts around the age of five, because the bones are very tender at that time and have no final shape. The feet are pointed with the big toes, and the other four fingers are tightly wrapped inward. After being formed, the feet are shaped like zongzi (so many people think that the Dragon Boat Festival It is an auspicious day for foot binding). Broken ceramic pieces should also be wrapped around the foot-binding cloth, and then tightly wrapped until blood oozes, preferably once in the morning and evening, until the woman gets married. Once it is wrapped, it cannot be removed because it is also a form of protection.
Foot binding is a phenomenon unique to China's feudal society and one of the manifestations of the deformed social ideology distorted by feudal rulers. After the establishment of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the foot-binding liberation order was promulgated.
Among China’s population of 1.3 billion, there are less than 1 million women with bound feet still alive. They are scattered in different provinces in China. Today, Liuyi Village in Yunnan Province may have the largest number of women with bound feet in the world. place. There are still about 22 women with bound feet living in Liuyi Village. It is said that because the geographical location of Liuyi Village is relatively remote, when they were young, they did not know that the Chinese government had strictly prohibited women from binding their feet in 1928, so they still bound their feet.
In another twenty years, the cruel custom of foot binding may completely disappear in China