The Bondage of the “Golden Lotus”
For centuries, the practice of foot binding crippled the women of China, rendering them helpless, dependant upon their husbands, and subservient to their mother-in-laws. Foot binding became popular during the Sung dynasty around 960-976 BC, after one of Emperor Li Yu’s favorite concubines did a dance with her feet bound in white silk atop a golden lotus flower. (Greenhalg, 1977) Thus the name “Golden Lotus” came to describe the fashion of mutilating the feet of young girls, in order to achieve an ideal diminutive foot. Transforming a natural foot into a “lotus” foot required the toes to be bound tightly with bands of cloth. The toes were often broken so that the foot could be wrapped more tightly and thus become smaller. The value of a woman was measured by the size of her feet, the smaller her feet, the more desirable and worthy of marriage she was. Soon, it became a necessity for girls to have their feet bound in order to marry. According to Susan Greenhalg, foot binding was not merely a fashion trend but a way of maintaining the stability and power of the patriarchal family structure of Chinese society. By physically debilitating the women, husbands could ensure that their wives could not return to the homes of their birth, disrupt his chances of producing a male heir, and undermining the masculine supremacy as a whole. (Greenhalg, 1977)
This practice began among the upper classes, but slowly was adopted among the lower classes. The lotus foot became a symbol of economic prosperity and large amounts of disposable income. To have a wife with bound feet, announced to the world that your family was rich and did not have to rely on her manual labor to prosper. (Greenhalg, 1977) The only financial benefit of a wife with lotus feet was the dowry that her family provided for her, otherwise she merely an elegant and expensive dependant. Upper class families would often start binding their daughters’ feet at around age three to ensure that the proper deformation was achieved. Lower class families would wait until their daughters were older and bind their feet less tightly, allowing them with greater mobility and a greater ability to work.
Foot binding remained a popular custom in China, until the end of the imperial dynasties and intrusion of the west in the twentieth century. (Ling, Stone, 1997) Westerners deemed the practice barbaric and it became a source of national shame. Though foot binding is no longer practiced in China today, many elderly women are still suffering from its debilitating effects. According to a study done by Xu Ling and Katie Stone of the University of California, San Francisco, thirty-eight percent of women 80 or older had bound foot deformities and that these women were more likely to have fallen in the past year than women of the same age group without foot deformities. (Ling, Stone, 1997) These women were also less likely to be able to rise from a chair on their own, than women without these deformities. (Ling, Stone, 1997) These women were also found to have lower hip bone and spine bone densities. (Ling, Stone, 1997)
Though gender inequality still exists, foot binding no longer takes place in China, so women needn’t fear this form of subjugation.
Sources
- Bound Feet, Hobbled Lives: Women in Old China (in Woman as Victim)
Susan Greenhalgh
Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1. (Spring, 1977), pp. 7-21.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0160-9009%28197721%292%3A1%3C7%3ABFHLWI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U
- “Foot-Binding Custom has Caused Disabilities in Chinese Women” from
UCSF’s Electronic Daily Day Break News (November 4th, 1997) http://www.ucsf.edu/daybreak/1997/11/1104_foot.htm
