Ancient China was an era that was deeply rooted in feudal superstition, the status of women was very low, and men would feel that women with small feet walked very gracefully, so in order to get the pleasure of men, women did not hesitate to endure great pain, wrapped up their feet, a pair of feet, stunned to be wrapped into a three-inch golden lotus shape. And they are also proud of it, and it is precisely in this way that they have gradually formed a deformed aesthetic.
There are two main reasons why ancient women wrapped their feet, first of all, in the Song Dynasty, it was beautiful to have small feet, and the women of the harem would be entangled enough to be favored by the emperor, and the women of the folk followed suit, and secondly, in ancient times, some literati would think that women with a pair of small feet could show a weak and uncontrollable state, which was also in line with their aesthetics.
Foot binding is a custom in ancient China, it is said that this custom began in the Southern Tang Dynasty, Li Hou lord ordered the palace women to wrap their feet with cloth, and also to wrap them into a crescent shape, so that they can dance on the six-foot-high lotus platform, and from then on, the foot binding was imitated.
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, this was also an era of looking at feet, because to see whether a woman was beautiful or ugly, the most important criterion was to see the size and shape of her feet, and even whether a woman was wrapped in her feet and how she was wrapped would directly affect whether she could marry a good family.
In addition to these, women's foot binding also has a purpose, that is, women who have wrapped their feet are not conducive to walking because of their small feet, so this also prevents women from cheating.
The ancient woman's three-inch golden lotus is also the aesthetic habit of ancient people, its origin is the concept of beauty of women's small feet, after the woman reaches the prescribed age, she will be required to wrap her feet tightly with cloth until it constitutes a sharp bend shaped like a diamond horn, similar to a cone.
At first, the word three-inch golden lotus is very beautiful, and there is also an indescribable sense of mystery, but after really seeing it wrapped into three-inch feet, it will not have such a feeling, because it can't be called a foot at all, 10 toes are twisted together, curled up like a fist, when the shroud is taken down layer by layer, it is even more unbearable to look at it.
And the three-inch golden lotus is generally much more gorgeous than the usual shoes, which are embroidered with peony goldfish and other auspicious and beautiful things, the toe of the shoes is slightly curved, some young girls wear the golden lotus, generally take bright red, the old woman is wearing black or darker color.
In the old days, women's status in society was very low, they were required to wrap their feet since they were young, and the three-inch golden lotus was the name for their three-inch small feet, the small feet that were wrapped into deformities, it was really like being forced into cripple by birth, and their lives were so painful that they could be imagined.
In the old society, women living in poverty were not as good as those women who were born without worrying about food and clothing, and they still needed to run for their livelihood with small feet, so they paid much more than ordinary women.
As a popular trend, foot binding was most prevalent in the Qing Dynasty, when almost all women in the country wrapped their feet, because this has developed into an aesthetic, if a woman has a pair of big feet, it will certainly be laughed at.
However, it is recorded in the history of the Qing Dynasty that after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, Dorgon ordered such a custom to be stopped, not to save women from water and fire, but the Manchu Qing considered that foot binding is a Han tradition, if this custom is stopped, it will also be very conducive to the Submission of the Han people to the Manchu Qing.
After Fu Lin really took power, Xiaozhuang issued an order prohibiting women from wrapping their feet, and even during the Hongli years, they also stopped it, but despite the emperor's orders, many Han women did not change this habit.
Later, until the late Qing Dynasty, cixi, who was in power, was also very disgusted by such behavior, and strictly prohibited women from binding their feet, but the results were insignificant.
The reason why in the hearts of Han women, the idea of foot binding has long been deeply rooted, and the reason why it can be so popular is that the distorted aesthetic plays a major role.
Until after the Xinhai Revolution, the government repeatedly banned women's foot binding, and at that time, people's minds had also been opened, and after this time, women did not have foot binding anymore.