Why did you wrap your feet in ancient times?

The foot-wrapping is the result of the ancient aesthetic, the ancients very much respected the small and delicate aesthetic, to small feet for beauty, especially for men, small feet are very attractive. For example, the term "three-inch golden lotus" represents a term of praise for the beauty of women's feet. And within four inches is known as "silver lotus", greater than four inches is called "iron lotus", see the degree of reverence for small feet.

The foot-binding is an ancient Chinese custom, which means that women use cloth to wrap their feet tightly, so that their feet are deformed and small, in order to be beautiful. Generally, women began to wrap their feet from the age of four or five until the adult skeleton is shaped after the cloth will be unwrapped, there are also lifelong wrapping.

Footbinding is a behavior that destroys the normal development of the limbs. Women with footbinding have to start wrapping their feet at an early age, slowly bending the bones of the foot to make it deformed. After foot-binding, the foot not only has all kinds of inconvenience in practical life, but also in the whole process of foot-binding, women have to bear great pain. This kind of thing, which has no practical utility and causes extreme pain to the bearer, has been popular and become a social custom for nearly a thousand years.

Expanded Information

According to modern scholars, foot binding began in the late Northern Song Dynasty and flourished in the Southern Song Dynasty. In the Yuan Dynasty, foot binding continued to develop in the direction of slimming. In the Ming Dynasty, the style of foot binding entered a period of prosperity, the emergence of the "three-inch golden lotus" said that the foot should not only be as small as three inches, but also bowed.

But the unearthed female corpses before the Qing Dynasty have not yet been found to have foot-binding, which can be seen at that time foot-binding was not very common. Qing Dynasty foot binding wind spread to all social classes of women, rich or poor, all have foot binding, but not a few of the foot binding.

The Han Chinese people have been pursuing the beauty of women's bodies for a long time, and in ancient times there was a "King of Chu is good thin waist, the Palace of more starvation," the saying, and through the ages there have been many poems praising the beautiful women who are well-built and have a light step. The ruler of the Song Dynasty also played a huge role in the promotion. The Song royal family and the Song upper class were the first to begin foot binding.

He Lin Yu Lu records: Jian Yan four years, "Zuo Fu Di Ji to the foot of the great suspicion. Knit knit said: the Jin people driven, tricked line ten thousand miles, how to return to the old state. On the compassionate". Song history - five lines of the record: "Rizong dynasty, the palace people bound feet fiber straight". This is an example of the Song Dynasty royal family, women in the palace foot binding.

Su Shi "Bodhisattva Barbarian" Wing foot "called women's small feet for the" Palace-like "Cao Yuan favors in a word called small feet for the" official-like "which also shows that foot-binding from the Song Dynasty bureaucrats and aristocrats, such as the Song Dynasty upper-class society.

Footbinding was also very much respected by the Song literati, even Su Shi, Xin Qiji, such an outstanding literary heroes have sung and appreciated footbinding chapter. In Su Shi's "Bodhisattva Barbarians", there is a sentence that reads, "It should be difficult to say that the fiber is delicate, but it must be seen from the palm of the hand", and in Xin Qiji's "Bodhisattva Barbarians", there is a sentence that reads, "The yellow bow-like shoes are small, and I am afraid of the wind blowing them down", which is often quoted by the people.

Mr. Lin Yutang once described the gait of women after footbinding: Chinese women's footbinding, completely changed the woman's style and gait, "its role is equal to the modern girl wearing high-heeled shoes, and produced a very strict and delicate gait, so that the whole body to form a weak, shaking down to produce a feeling of pity. "

And it is this "pathetic feeling" that inflates the feudal scholar's own sense of superiority. Thus, it breeds "the highest degree of secrecy in the ideal of sex".

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