Chinese Foot Binding: Fashion or Torture?

Foot binding was practiced in China for 1000 years. Young girls would have their feet wrapped, thus limiting the normal development and essentially crippling them.

Today, it is a prominent cause of disability among elderly Chinese women.

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Foot binding (Simplified Chinese: 缠足; Traditional Chinese: 纏足; Hanyu Pinyin: chánzú, literally “bound feet”) also known as kack put, was a custom practiced on young females for approximately one thousand years in China, beginning in the 10th century and ending in the early 20th century.

In Chinese foot binding, young girls’ feet, usually at age 6 but often earlier, were wrapped in tight bandages so that they could not grow and develop normally; they would, instead, break and become highly deformed, not growing past 4-6 inches. As the girl reached adulthood, her feet would remain small and dysfunctional, prone to infection, paralysis, and muscular atrophy.

This was initially a common practice only in the wealthiest parts of China, particularly in North China. However, by the late Qing Dynasty, foot binding had become popular among people of all social classes except the poorest of peasants, who needed able-bodied women to work the fields.

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