. . . customs change men, at first slowly, but after a long while these changes are looked upon as if they were ordained by Heaven. This is true of eating, drinking, and man-woman relationships. It is indeed strange that everyone conforms and that no individualistic view emerges. . . . What is the good of making a woman’s feet so small because every generation is mad about this? I think that to maim your own daughter’s limbs to make them prettier is like burning the bones of your parents in order to seek good fortune. How pitiful!
Yu Cheng-hsieh (1775-1840) was another liberal scholar who defended the rights of women. Yu opposed footbinding because it so weakened women that they lost the vigor characteristic of ladies of antiquity. He also remarked that bowed shoes were formerly the humble equipment of dancing girls. Women debased themselves by wearing such shoes, remarked Yu, and so did the men who encouraged them.
These voices in the wilderness, few at first but increasing with the passage of time, were forerunners of the revolutionary movement which freed Chinese women from their centuries of bondage.
PART THREE
CUSTOM
Chapter Nine
Painful History of the Lotus Hooks
To the Chinese revolutionary, elimination of footbinding and emancipation of women were synonymous terms. Bringing the custom to an end was regarded as an important mission, but this was difficult because women still remained hidden and inaccessible within boudoir recesses. Foot reform enjoyed its initial successes in the larger cities and towns. Yen Hsi-shan accomplished much during his control of Shansi, but other provinces did not necessarily follow suit. While there were official orders everywhere against footbinding, enforcement depended on the ability and ingenuity of local officials.
By the late twenties footbinding was obviously on the wane. However, the conservative male view of woman as an inferior accessory and plaything remained fundamentally unchanged; in such an atmosphere, preservation of the old ways must have been regarded as natural and proper. Women stayed at home rearing children, doing household tasks, and serving their husbands. They were ignorant and cut off from the outside world. A father wanted his sons to go to school, but he ignored the intellectual development of his daughters. Conservative thinkers shied away from discussing a theme as personal as women’s feet, and the peasant masses were even less inclined to talk about it. Therefore, though numerous decrees forbade footbinding, without a revolutionary change in mass outlook it was difficult to hasten the day of full effect.
The spread of public education gave educators a chance to persuade youth to break with outmoded tradition and advocate natural-footedness as a sign of modernity. Students in the late twenties and early thirties proclaimed unequivocally that they would refuse to take tiny-footed brides:
Early revolutionary treatises facilitated the task of political propagandists by supplying them with ideological arguments. The four hundred millions of China were depicted as only half that number in actual strength because of the paralysis caused by footbinding. It resulted in “a wild disorder of flesh and blood and a violent plundering of the limbs,” and it created a woman who could not “perform feminine tasks or take care of household matters; to the end of her life, she remains in an extremely weakened condition. Once the feet are bent, every illness assails the bones. Such women are inadequate as mothers and cannot produce strong children.” It was made clear that the feminine population had become footless because of a warped national outlook which regarded footbinding as an exalted virtue. Since parents came to expect it of their daughters and husbands of their wives, everyone wanted to perpetuate the custom of having warped extremities. Parents inflicted it on the child without considering it oppressive, and neighbors praised it as being in the normal order of human developments. China was contrasted unfavorably with Europe and the United States, where females as well as males could be fully used to serve the nation. It was further argued that binding stood in the way of feminine education, which was essential to raise intellectual levels and national prestige.
Footbinding achieved its greatest popularity towards the end of the Ch’ing dynasty, but the seeds of destruction were already evident. The frequent dynastic prohibitions against it increased awareness of its shortcomings, and an abolition movement came to be supported by liberal Chinese critics and Western missionaries. These diverse elements worked together closely as time went on; after the Revolution, the attack gathered increasing momentum and wider scope.
In August, 1928, the Ministry of Domestic Affairs announced sixteen regulations against footbinding and ordered all prefectures to carry out enforcement. The essential points were:
Young girls under fifteen are to let out their feet if bound and not bind them if still unbound. The fine for disobedience is to be more than one but less than five silver dollars. Women over thirty are to be advised to let out their feet but not forced to do so.
Three months will be allowed for persuasion, but the next three months will be devoted to enforcement.
Each District Magistrate and Bureau of Public Safety Chief is to assemble the elders and seniors of his locality and ask them to work actively for abolition.
The founding of foot emancipation clubs is encouraged, and free assemblage for this purpose is granted.
Women investigators will be appointed to assist village and street elders in conducting periodic examinations.
Primary school texts are to have a chapter added on the prohibition of footbinding so that an emancipation mood will be fostered among young students, who will then influence their families and relatives. [Popular articles intended to evoke a mass response were also inserted in the daily press.]
Propaganda, prohibition, and investigation were attempted in areas where footbinding prevailed, but the effect varied with popular attitudes and the methods used by individual administrators. One effective leader was Teng Ch’ang-yao, Chief of Civil Administration in the conservative stronghold of Shensi Province. Mr. Teng ordered foot emancipation for all women, with violators to be punished, shortly following a great fire in which most of the several-dozen killed and injured proved to be tiny footed; they had been unable to flee. Members of his Civil Affairs Office conducted private investigations and arbitrarily confiscated bindings, which soon numbered into the thousands. Mr. Teng put them in one room and invited people to attend a meeting there. Those who did had to hold their noses because of the stench.
Mr. Teng led excursions into the villages. If he saw a woman with tiny feet, he exhorted her kindly to renounce the practice and explained to her why it was injurious. If the listener got angry, Teng’s co-workers sang amusing propaganda songs: