When did the tradition of foot-binding begin for women in ancient China? Why this horrible tradition? Who invented it?

Women's foot-binding didn't start in the Qing Dynasty, it has been pushed upwards and arose around the 5th Dynasty or early Song Dynasty. Anyway, people in the Tang Dynasty did not wrap their feet. The foot-binding trend flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Only noble women had their feet wrapped during the Song Dynasty, but not ordinary women. And at that time, the requirements for foot wrapping was only slender and straight, not so bad that it would hurt in later times.

It is said that the ancient women wrapped feet because the South Tang Dynasty after the Lord Li Yu like to watch women dancing on the "golden lotus", because the golden lotus is too small, the dancers will be wrapped up in white silk feet to feet bent on the top, the dance will appear graceful, gentle and delicate, was a kind of dance costume, and then slowly spread from the harem to the upper class, and later on, the women were wrapped up in white silk. To the upper class circulated, in the future, folk women have followed suit, and gradually become a common social custom, become a pathological aesthetic.

For women, beauty is important. It is an important means and way to get a better life, as for whether you can walk or not, who cares?

Why is foot-binding popular in China? Roughly there are two reasons, one is the ruler's will on the people of the world, the other is the culture people appreciate and praise. As far as the origin of foot-binding is concerned, it is related to the rulers. It is said that foot-wrapping originated from the Southern Tang Dynasty's Empress Li Yu, who sang "Spring flowers, Autumn and Moon, when will it be over?" His concubines wrapped their feet into a crescent shape with cloth and danced on a lotus made of gold, which was considered by Empress Li as the most beautiful thing, and foot-wrapping was started in the harem, and then it was spread to the civil society. As long as the emperor likes something, the folk will certainly be popular, the emperor of the Tang Dynasty preferred Taoist culture, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang even claimed to be the emperor of Taoism, so Taoism reached the peak of development in the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Qianlong loved calligraphy, all the promotion of the development of calligraphy, Empress Li preferred small-footed women, all the foot-binding became popular. About the origin of foot-binding, there are several other sayings, some say it is from the southern dynasty qi waste emperor consort pan yu nu, some say it is from the end of the tang dynasty, some say it is from and sui yang emperor and so on, but invariably have a relationship with the rulers, which also explains this reason.

In addition to the will of the rulers, that is the influence of the literati on social customs. Ancient women paid much attention to the headdress, and then the feet, idioms "pin head", "pin head and foot" have the meaning of discussing the appearance of women's physique, the head and feet, become the eyes of the culture of women's beauty is an important standard. Culturists have a lot of words of praise for small feet, what "Golden Lotus", "Three-inch Golden Lotus", "fragrant hooks" and so on, are all culturists to give the small feet of praise words, Su Dongpo "Bodhisattva Barbarian Su Dongpo's "Bodhisattva Barbarian" foot words cloud "delicate say should be difficult, must be seen from the palm", and even developed a small foot beauty of the seven standards: thin, small, pointed, curved, fragrant, soft, positive, and summed up the small feet of the "seven beauties": shape, quality, capital, God, fat, soft, show, is really a profound and profound. The "seven beauties" are summarized: shape, quality, capital, god, fat, soft and beautiful.