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| X-ray of bound feet, China (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
About
a year ago, my girlfriend and I took a trip to China. It was a
beautiful country and there was a lot to see and do there. I
absolutely love the culture there and I really want to make another
trip sometime soon. What I wanted to talk about today was something
we learned so much about on our trip and that is the ancient art of
foot binding. We have all heard about this form of body modification,
but very few people actually know much about it. The Whence Foot
binding Museum was one of those places I just went to because my
girlfriend wanted to, but I found it to be fascinating, and I'm not
going to lie – a little bit heartbreaking.
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| Chinese shoes for bound feet, The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The
ancient custom was first practised during the Shang Dynasty and
continued well into the 20th century. It is estimated
that up to 2 billion women in China had their feet broken and bound
to make their feet tiny in order to fit the ideal of physical
perfection. Sadly, this practice was still being carried out as
recently as the nineteen fifties.
Footing
began among the rich Chinese ladies looking for a husband. The
practise was performed on very young girls while the bones of the
feet are soft and able to be broken much more easily. Once the feet
are bound, there is no going back. This is a permanent body modification. As of around ten years ago there were still 300 women
with bound feet. The ritual takes around two years of constant pain
and rebinding several times per day before the healing begins. The
subjects are in constant pain and were unable to walk properly. Even
although the feet would eventually heal, the deformed shape made
walking faster than a shuffle impossible. Although tiny feet were
seen as beautiful, many accounts in the museum from survivors of this
extreme body modification said that the feet resembled twisted dead
caterpillars.
It is
believed that foot binding added to the subjugation of women because
the restriction in movement had the effect of enforcing chastity and
meant they would never wander far from home. This made them dependant
on their husbands.
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