There are three main theories about the origin of foot binding:
One theory is from the Warring States. The Qing Dynasty Zhao Yi's "Yu Cong Kao" quotes the "Chronicle of History and Cargo Breeding": "Zhao Daughter Zheng Ji, set up a description, pluck the piano, pluck the long song, and stomp on the litu." It is believed that "The sharpness of the sharp head is evidence of foot binding."
Another theory is that it originated from the Southern Dynasty. According to the Nanshi Qidong Xiahou Benji, Xiao Baojuan of the Eastern Xiahou "chiseled gold for the lotus flower (flower) to the ground, so that Concubine Pan walked on it, saying that 'this step gave birth to lotus Huaye'".
The third theory is that it began in the Southern Tang Dynasty of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms. At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, Tao Zongyi's "Record of Quitting Cultivation and Foot Binding" contains that the Later Tang Dynasty "Li Hou's main palace concubine, delicate and good dancer, later master jinlian, six feet high... Ling Miao Niang wrapped her feet in a drapery, made the slender bend, made a crescent moon, and danced in the clouds of plain socks, and swirled in a state of lingyun", which was effected by the palace people.
The first two claims have yet to be examined. As mentioned earlier, men's and women's boots in the Southern and Northern Dynasties can be worn by each other, and women in the Tang Dynasty wearing men's boots and shirts have become a fashion, and it will never be a three-inch golden lotus. From the aesthetic point of view, the women of the Tang Dynasty were beautiful with robustness and fullness, and the slender golden lotus was incompatible with the fashion of the times. Therefore, the statement that began in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms is recognized by the academic community. The specific method of foot binding is described in detail in the Qing Dynasty Li Ruzhen's "Mirror Flower Edge". Generally from the age of four or five, the toes are put together, the forefoot is bent inward, the foot is arched, and the hollow of the foot is suitable for an egg. Then it was wrapped fiercely in a two-inch-wide shroud, sewn tightly with needle and thread while wrapping it. Over time, ten toes rotted and covered in blood. After a year, the rotting flesh and blood on the feet had turned into pus and flowed out, leaving only a few dry bones.
Although the foot binding was soaked with the blood and tears of ancient women, many of the merry monks still sang and mocked the beauty of the three-inch golden lotus in the women's painful groans. The Northern Song Dynasty Su Dongpo's "Bodhisattva Man (Yong Foot)" set a precedent for the first time: "Tu Xiang Mo Xi Lian Chengbu, Long Sorrow Luo Sock Ling Bo go ... It should be difficult to say that it should be difficult, and it must be seen from the palm of the hand. The Sumen scholar Qin Guan also has a verse of "four inches of shoes on the feet". Qing Ren Fang Xuan's "Fragrant Lotus PinZao", there are three noble, four taboo, five styles, nine products, and eighteen incense sticks. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were seven character tips for wrapping feet small, thin, pointed, curved, fragrant, soft, and positive, all of which were obscene works of boring literati.
Since the Yuan Dynasty, a bad custom of foot worship has been formed. According to Tao Zongyi's "Record of Quitting Cultivation" volume 23 "Golden Lotus Cup", Yang Weizhen (Iron Cliff), a famous scholar of the Yuan Dynasty, saw a dancer with small feet at the feast, took off his shoes and put on a wine glass to carry out wine, called the Golden Lotus Cup. The strange custom of the golden lotus cup was popular in the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties. Some put the bow shoes on the plate, cast them with lotus seeds, red beans, etc., and put the other one on the wine glass to serve the wine, and the loser must drink the wine. Some shouted the first to the thirtieth day of the first year, passed the bow shoes according to specific requirements, and the wrong transmission was punished with wine. The absurdity is disgusting.
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Embroidered bow shoes
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was a custom of foot drying, which was most famous in Datong, Shanxi. On the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth month of the old calendar, women sat in the doorway, stretched out their feet, and let others judge their heads, and the small ones were honored, as if they were the heads of the female class or the leaders of the red face, just as glorious as the modern beauty pageant. From the end of the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, there was this custom in foot-binding areas.
Due to the mocking and profane praise of the literati, the worship of foot-worshipping, the vulgar and ignorant and vulgar worship, and the cheap reward of the vices of drying feet, foot binding has become a helpless self-consciousness, forming a distorted aesthetic concept, "the archway should be large, the golden lotus should be small", and a pair of golden lotuses has become a clear symbol of women's beauty and ugliness. Normal and healthy Bigfoot became a great shame and a lifelong distress, "the mother is ashamed, the husband is ashamed.".
A girl who does not have her feet tied cannot marry. The Qing Dynasty Yuan Ming's "Suiyuan Poetry" volume IV: "Hangzhou Zhao Juntai bought concubines in Suzhou. There are women surnamed Li who are good-looking and undershooted. Zhao Yue: 'It seems like this style, but it is a pity that the soil is heavy.' 'The earth heavy, hangzhou proverb foot big also. The matchmaker said: 'Li Nü can poetry, can be interviewed. Zhao wants to play, that is, with the proposition of "Bow Shoes". Female is Shuyun: 'The three-inch bow shoe has not existed since ancient times, and the Guanyin Master is naked and double-handed. I don't know where the foot binding came from, from the humble husband in the world. ’”
Foot binding is a kind of human body decoration behavior that adapts to the aesthetic fashion of society with the mutation of its own flesh, which is deformed and pathological. It lasted for a thousand years, and even after successive exhortations by various forces such as foreign assimilation forces, the Taiping Rebellion, the bourgeois reformists, the revolutionaries, and the decrees of the New Deal at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the malicious insults of foreign forces that despised the Chinese, and the goodwill persuasion of the Western church forces, it was basically eliminated until it was strictly prohibited and punished by the Nationalist government. It seems incomprehensible that a woman's little feet are so stubborn and that she has become the "protagonist" of the early 20th century era, and the power of social customs is so irresistible. In the past thousand years, the traditional concepts and social public opinion supervision forces it has accumulated and solidified are the main reasons why it is difficult to return.
First of all, foot binding is rooted in the cultural soil of male superiority and female inferiority, turning women into "semi-disabled" who are weak and cannot help the wind, and "not far away" by relying on their husbands in politics, economy, and interpersonal communication, which coincides with the traditional concept of "men are strong and beautiful" [70] and "three from four virtues". Secondly, the aesthetic requirements of foot binding do not come from women themselves, but from society, in order to satisfy men's visual pleasure. From "a woman is a person who says (pleases) herself" to "The golden lotus is not small, and there is no word for the person", this point is explained. Men appreciate and enjoy beauty, and women play beauty. The whole society and the new concept of men in the world of heavenly feet for beauty are not established, and women and their parents dare not put their feet on the feet under any circumstances.
Reference: A History of Chinese Social Customs