Example

    Multiple theories attempt to explain the origin of foot binding: from the desire to emulate the naturally tiny feet of a favored concubine of a prince, to a story of an empress who had club-like feet, which became viewed as a desirable fashion. However, there is little strong textual evidence for the custom prior to the court of the Southern Tang Dynasty in Nanjing, which celebrated the fame of its dancing girls, renowned for their tiny feet and beautiful bow shoes. What is clear is that foot binding was first practiced among the elite and only in the wealthiest parts of China, which suggests that binding the feet of well-born girls represented their freedom from manual labor and, at the same time, the ability of their husbands to afford wives who did not need to work.

    By the 17th century, Han Chinese girls, from the wealthiest to the richest peasants, had their feet bound. Some estimate that as many as 2 billion Chinese women were subjected to this practice, from the late 10th century until 1949, when foot binding was outlawed by the Communists. In contrast to the majority of other Han Chinese, the Hakka of southern China did not practise foot binding and had natural feet. Manchu women were forbidden to bind their feet by an edict from the Emperor after the Manchu started their rule of China in 1644. Many other non-Han ethnic groups continued to observe the custom, some of them practiced loose binding which did not break the bones of the arch and toes but simply narrowed the foot.

    The practice of foot binding continued into the 20th century, when both Chinese and Western missionaries called for reform; at this point, a true anti-foot binding movement emerged. Educated Chinese began to realize this aspect of their culture did not reflect well upon them in the eyes of foreigners; and feminists attacked the practice because it caused women to suffer. At the turn of the 20th century, well born women such as Kwan Siew-Wah, a pioneering feminist, advocated for the end of foot-binding. Kwan herself refused the foot binding imposed on her in childhood, so that she could grow normal feet.

    There had been earliest but unsuccessful attempts to stop the practice of foot binding, various emperors issuing unsuccessful edicts against it. The Empress Dowager Cixi (a Manchu) issued such an edict following the Boxer Rebellion in order to appease foreigners, but it was rescinded a short time later. In 1911, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the new Republic of China government banned foot binding. Women were told to unwrap their feet lest they be killed. Some women’s feet grew a half-inch to an inch after the unwrapping, though some found the new growth process extremely painful as well as emotionally and culturally devastating. Still, societies were founded to support the abolition of foot binding, with contractual agreements made between families who would promise an infant son in marriage to an infant daughter who did not have bound feet. When the Communists took power in 1949, they were able to maintain the strict prohibition on foot binding, which is still in effect today.