Foot-binding is a bad habit in ancient China, which means that women wrap their feet tightly with cloth, making them deformed and beautiful. Generally, women begin to bind their feet at the age of four or five and untie the cloth belt until the adult skeleton is finalized. Some people are still tied for life.
Foot-binding in Yuan Dynasty continued to develop in a slim direction. In the Ming Dynasty, the wind of foot-binding entered a prosperous period, and the saying of "three-inch golden lotus" appeared, which required that the feet should be not only as small as three inches, but also bent. However, foot-binding was not found in female corpses unearthed before the Qing Dynasty, which shows that foot-binding was not very common at that time.
The storm of foot-binding in Qing dynasty affected women in all walks of life, rich or poor, but there were not a few who did not bind their feet.
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Causes and harm of ancient foot binding
The popularity of foot binding is probably caused by the beauty pageant of the imperial court. In order to prevent "the danger of not rushing to the imperial court" and "no one chooses a foot-binding daughter to avoid the order of beauty pageants", court officials in past dynasties were forced to form a folk custom.
Later, all the women in the government bound their feet, which didn't look good at first. Instead, they laughed at the farmers' feet "not yet evolved", and prejudice spread, and they followed suit. Even in Xuanhua, there is a "Little Foot Club", which is proud of being small.
Because foot-binding is artificial and violates physiological science, it has been opposed by many progressive people in modern times. In the 24th year of Guangxu reign in Qing Dynasty, the "Tianzu Club" was established in Shanghai to persuade women not to bind their feet, and the world immediately stood up. Beijing has also set up such an organization, and more and more women in middle-class society do not bind their feet.
In fact, there have been many women who have opposed foot binding since ancient times. I remember an anecdote: Zhao Juntai from Hangzhou went to Suzhou to buy a concubine, and the matchmaker introduced a girl named Li. She looks excellent, but her feet are not wrapped. Zhao is quite skeptical about this. The matchmaker said that this woman is very talented in poetry. Zhao wanted to Doby her, so she took bow shoes and tested them face to face.
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