Li Bai's "Xi Shi": The beauty hides the present and the ancient, and the lotus flowers are ashamed of their jade faces. Huan sha makes clear water, self and qingbo idle. The teeth are hard to open, and the groans are in the clouds. There are countless poems praising women's beauty and figure in successive dynasties, and during the Song Dynasty, Confucianism was revived, and Cheng Zhu Lixue appeared, and under the impetus of Neo-Confucianism, the first foot-binding wind appeared.
Foot binding during the Song Dynasty is considered to be a small foot beauty, just like the Tang Dynasty, Shangguan Wan'er's forehead plum blossom tattoo, Tang Dynasty women have also followed suit, foot binding also originated from the aristocratic royal family, Song Dynasty poet Su Shi wrote in "Bodhisattva Man":
Tu Xiang Mo Xi Lian took the step. Long sorrow Luo socks Ling Bo went. Only to see the dance back to the wind. None of them were found. Stealing through the palace is stable. Juxtaposition of double-sided sleep. It should be difficult to say that it is delicate. Must be seen from the palm of your hand
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Su Shi compared the small foot to the "palace-like" also shows that the folk were not yet popular to wrap their feet, the Song HuiZong Xuan and the custom of foot binding during the years have a greater development, "Maple Window Xiaomu" said that after Xuanhe appeared "flower boots bow shoes" This is a shoe specially used to wrap the foot, after the Southern Song Dynasty, up to the court, down to the people have begun to wrap their feet.
During the Yuan Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, the wind of foot binding entered a prosperous period, not only to wrap the feet, but also appeared "three inches of golden lotus", the ancient measurement is different, the so-called three inches is only a basic number of "convention", as for the golden lotus should be from Buddhist culture.
Buddhism was introduced during the Han Ming Emperor period, more than two thousand years of development, Buddhist culture into all aspects of people's lives, Buddhism in the lotus out of the mud without staining, is regarded as a symbol of purity and purity, in ancient culture, "gold" and represent this precious or beautiful, so the golden lotus is a kind of "good name" for women at that time.
In fact, after the Qing soldiers entered the customs, Jurchen implemented the "shaving hair and changing clothes", foot binding is the "tradition" of the Han people must also be changed, Shunzhi seventeen years, issued a decree: foot binding, his husband or father staff eighty, flow three thousand miles, Kangxi three years (1664 AD) and reaffirmed the law, but the wind of foot binding is difficult to reverse, had to give up.
When wrapping the "three-inch golden lotus", it is necessary to wrap the cloth strip to the tightest, and every time it is untangled, the curled toe must be strangled from the bottom of the foot to the inside, and each time the toe is wrapped, it will be pressed down a little, fortunately, in 1912, the president of the Republic of China Sun Yat-sen issued an order to the whole country to persuade the whole country to prohibit foot binding, and the foot binding slowly withdrew from the historical stage.
However, there are still some feudal families in the Republic of China who are still wrapping their feet, Lu Xun's original Pair Zhu An, Guo Moruo's original Zhang Qionghua, Hu Shi's wife is also a three-inch golden lotus, in Yunnan Yuxi Yuanjiang County Wayuan Township can still see a proud little foot old man, Zhang Meiyun old man is 96 years old.
When she wrapped her feet, she was only seven years old, her mother tied her to a chair, wrapped her feet with cloth, she cried her heart and lungs, when she slept at night, her feet were as painful as the charcoal fire, and when she woke up the next day, she had to continue to wrap her feet, sometimes the pain was really unbearable, Zhang Meiyun unwrapped the cloth, and after her mother found out, she beat her badly.
Because of the "three inches of golden lotus", 15-year-old Zhang Meiyun married into a large family, she did not need to do any work, after giving birth to a boy for her husband, the mother-in-law of the family was better for her, but every time she washed her feet, she would hide and not let others see, for 90 years, only her husband had seen it.
Now the elderly Zhang Meiyun still wraps her feet in cloth, washing her feet or avoiding anyone, her granddaughter once said that once she wanted to see her grandmother wash her feet, and she was scolded by her mother. After all, foot binding is only a feudal bad habit, and pure natural feet are the most beautiful.