Our country has a long history and culture, and there are some customs and habits that are popular, but there are also many bad habits that have been banned later, for example, one of them is foot binding, which is a bad habit of mutilating women's bodies.
There used to be "three inches of golden lotus, four inches of silver lotus", that is to say, if you are a three-inch small foot, it can be called a golden lotus, the price of gold, four inches is the price of silver, it can be seen how valuable three inches are, not only valuable, but also liked by the husband.
In the Republic of China period, there was such a woman, her name was Liu Niang, at the age of 15, she married into the rich family by relying on her "three inches of golden lotus", he had never washed his feet in his life, because his toes had been broken by foot binding, and every time he opened and washed his feet, it was painful and unbearable, so he simply did not wash.
The rise of the one or three inches of golden lotus
Foot binding, also known as foot binding, began at the end of the Northern Song Dynasty and the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, when if a woman did not wrap her feet and did not wrap her feet, then she did not have any status in society, and she would not have a status in the family.
In the eyes of husbands and men, women only have beautiful women by wrapping their feet, and the aesthetics of men at that time were to determine whether they looked good or not, but this was not the main thing, because if you want to reach three inches of golden lotus, you have to start from a young age.
Generally when the girl is four or five years old, she begins to wrap her feet, and the foot wrap will break the child's 4 little fingers under the feet, and the heels should also be folded inside, so as to prevent the bones from growing outwards, and these broken bones are slowly growing in the shroud.
Liu Niang was born in a large family, received traditional feudal etiquette education, and knew her fate from an early age, so foot binding was also a must for her, and it was also a very normal thing, so when she was 4 years old, her parents began to wrap her feet.
After they broke Liu Niang's feet, they wrapped them tightly with cloth, these cloths could not be opened in a short time, he had to use needle and thread stitches to fix them, so that they could let the toes grow up in it, and wait until a period of time to change a foot wrap, but the foot wrap will not change the size.
If it is to be tied toes to grow up, it is not worth much, not "three inches of golden lotus", so between the ages of 4 and 15 years old, Liu Niang has always been wrapped in toes, because the toes have been in a closed narrow space for a long time, so some bones have been deformed, and the soles of the feet have only grown tall and can no longer grow.
When she grew up, Liu Niang also began to kiss with her "three-inch golden lotus", because Liu Niang not only had the famous "three-inch golden lotus", but also had a good appearance, so the people who came to mention her relatives were also endless, and his father also relied on his daughter's "three-inch golden lotus" to choose a husband for her at will.
It was fortunate that a local rich family was selected, and the Wang family was also a rich man at that time, and it was also beautiful to the woman's small feet, the husband felt that this could have more face, under this deformed aesthetic, Liu Niang got the favor of her husband and married into the rich.
Liu Niang lives very happily, because her feet are too small, her movements are not convenient, and there are many servants in the family, so Liu Niang rarely works, and her husband does not allow Liu Niang to work, it seems that Liu Niang married in just for her appreciation.
Liu Niang gave birth to 6 children for her husband, but unfortunately two children died early, Liu Niang belongs to the typical Chinese woman, three from four virtues, the door does not go out of the second door, the husband teaches his son, never goes out, shows his face.
Liu Niang has nothing else to do every day except to take care of these children, and in addition, Liu Niang never washes her feet, because everyone knows a sentence after a break, saying that the old lady's foot wrap is smelly and long.
The toes that have been wrapped in the shroud for a long time will definitely have a peculiar smell, and if she opens the shroud, she must not smoke her husband away, which is not allowed for women, because then it will embarrass herself.
Liu Niang has never been willing to wash her feet, her consciousness may be that her feet are too smelly, and then there is because the bones have been broken, if you want to wash your feet once, you must wash every toe inside, it is very painful, so Liu Niang basically does not wash her feet.
Ancient women's feet can not be shown to outsiders other than her husband, so no one has seen Liu Niang's real toes, only his own husband can see, 89 years, Liu Niang never washed her feet or showed them to others, only her husband can see.
In fact, in Liu Niang's heart, she deeply felt the harm of foot binding and women, so Liu Niang did not let her daughter wrap her feet, which was actually a great improvement at that time, but Liu Niang got the supreme honor in her in-laws' family because of her three-inch golden lotus.
Second, the decay of the bad habit of foot binding
Although the society has begun to eliminate this bad habit, as Liu Niang, it has been very difficult to live in such a feudal etiquette family and not let her daughter wrap her feet.
In the Southern Song Dynasty, someone once wrote a poem, "Although Qiongshu chao is facing the court, it is not as good as this year's step-by-step", to describe the enchanting posture of the woman when walking with a "three-inch golden lotus", which is also a sick aesthetic point of view for men at that time.
After the Ming and Qing dynasties, the standard of foot binding has been very strict, at that time, the daughters of the emperor's relatives and noble relatives, even the size of the foot binding was set as the standard to distinguish the level of identity, in the Qing Dynasty's Xianfeng years have been popularized to the people.
Because in the past, folk women had to go out to work and work, if they were all small feet, then they would not be able to go up the mountain to cut firewood and go down to the land to work in agriculture, so the original folk, some girls did not need to wrap their feet.
However, seeing the prevalence of such foot binding, the daughters of some poor families, in order to let their daughters marry into the rich and live the life of a rich person, have also joined the ranks of foot binding, which shows how popular foot binding was at that time.
However, in the late Qing Dynasty, entering the Republic of China, the government began to officially issue decrees prohibiting foot binding, because some new ideas believe that this is indeed mutilating women, foot binding has slowly faded out of the historical stage, and Liu Niang has become the last foot-binding woman in China.
3. Summary
These physical cruelties to women in the history of our country directly treat women as appendages of men, and also make the majority of women deeply humiliated and rebelled one after another, until today, men and women are equal, and women have begun to participate in social, production and economic construction.
Now the respect for women is also getting higher and higher, no matter how many years of history, no matter how long it has been circulated, as long as it is not conducive to physical and mental health, it should be banned, not all inheritance is beautiful, of course, we still have to retain the beautiful culture left over from history, abandon its dross, and leave its essence.