Foot Binding in China

Between the 10^th and 20^th century in China women would bind their feet with the motivation being finding a suitable mate. The tinier the women could get their feet the more desirable they were to the men. In the beginning this was typically practiced in families that had the luxury to free their women of manual labor as the process was extremely painful and essentially crippled the young women.

By the 17^th century an estimated 2 billion women had their feet bound and it was no longer just practiced by wealthy families. Foot binding started at a very young age as and the young girls had the arch of their feet broken and their toes tucked underneath the foot, where they were then bound. The girls were then forced to walk back and forth with their feet bound in this manner until their toes would break as well. The wraps of the feet would have to be changed often, typically by the other women of the house, and bound tightly to keep the bones in place while the foot was reforming. Great pride was taken in properly formed “lotus” shaped feet and this was shown off by beautifully embroidered silk slippers. This practice, which was incredibly dangerous (because of infection, impaired movement, etc) and also very painful, was not outlawed until the 20^th century when pushed by a feminist movement. I believe this to be one of the moreextreme forms of body modification as it leaves the women incredibly fragile and susceptible to infection.