Why do small-footed women in China have foot-binding?

There are four reasons:

The first is that foot-binding is a form of sexual oppression of women in feudal society, mainly to meet the physical needs of men. Since men require women to be chaste for their husbands, they have to restrict her movement, not let her more contact with the outside world, depriving her of the opportunity to socialize with other men, and for this reason, foot-binding is a "wonderful method". It meets a certain need of men: women wrapped small feet, is a weak willow wind, very slender and weak, when men face such a woman, he will have a very strong sense of sexual impulse.

Second, a method of restricting personal freedom. It has a restricting effect on both women and men. This requires a restriction on the movement of population, then the fundamental restriction on the movement of married men is to restrict the woman, where the woman is, the man will not go far.

The third, the feudal scholarly morbid aesthetics make. Many feudal literati regarded women as playthings, morbid aesthetics, enjoy playing small feet become a fetish.

The fourth, according to legend, the fifth generation of the South Tang Dynasty, Li Yu, the master of the country in a time when the monarchs and ministers of the same music, obsessed with a kind of dance, this dance it, on the woman's body and its high demand! Not only should the body be slender, but also the feet should be curved in the shape of a crescent moon. From then on, the South Tang Dynasty harem began to popularize the wind of foot-binding.

Extended information:

Footbinding is an ancient Chinese custom, which refers to the use of cloth by women to wrap their feet tightly, so that their feet are deformed and become smaller, so that they are beautiful. Generally, women from four or five years old will begin to wrap the feet, until the adult skeleton after the stereotypes will be untied cloth, there are also lifelong wrapped.

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. Ming Dynasty, the wind of foot-binding into the boom period, appeared "three inches of gold lotus" said that the foot should not only be as small as three inches, but also bowed, but before the Qing Dynasty unearthed women's corpses have not yet been found to have a foot-binding, visible at the time of foot-binding is not very common. Qing Dynasty foot-binding wind spread to all social classes of women, rich or poor, have foot-binding, but not foot-binding is not in the minority.