Besides the cultural preference or fetish for small feet that a lot of the wealthiest Chinese men apparently had back in the day, the main reason for feet binding was to show off the wealth of their husbands. A man whose wife had dainty little bound feet, proved to the world that he had a wife who did zero domestic chores. Because if your feet are bound, the bones are crunched together and gnarled. Walking is extremely painful and you hardly ever stand up unassisted for extended periods of time.
A woman with bound feet spends most her time lounging, lying around, or on her back entertaining her husband as she stays inside the home, gets carried around underneath an umbrella and keeps her skin as soft and milky white as possible. The family has to have maids, a cook, people running their household, raising their children, because the woman is incapable of doing much more than lying around and bearing children.
In fact a lot of these women were so badly broken that the man of the house had to keep concubines to give birth to additional children because for the wife with the bound feet to birth a whole clan of kids would be too much of a strain on her weakened physique. It was a rather awful condition, but it got out of favor somewhere around the late 19th century — even Empress Dowager Cixi did not have her feet bound, as hers were ‘naturally small’, and the preference for most noblemen was one for naturally small feet. Bound feet, more and more, became the fate of those girls who were ‘cursed’ with a larger bone structure, larger, broader feet. If she was naturally petite, no need to disfigure daughter dearest’s feet.
Eventually the last remnants of foot binding ended around the time the Communists took over, although the practice was pretty much already dead by that time. Even the wealthiest of Chinese wives wanted to at least walk around and enjoy their wealth, rather then be in physical agony over their messed up bones for their entire lives.
It continued to happen, in remote areas and in rare cases. You may still find a few old ladies here and there who’ve had their feet bound by their families as children. But it’s a rare thing and you will not find a great many of them. They’re a sad reminder of bygone times.
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