It is apparent, however, that women who completed the binding process without medical complications enjoyed a normal life expectancy; nine of our eleven elderly informants had outlived their husbands. They lived quietly and simply, confined to the home but amply looked after by children and grandchildren. Some had given up the practice; others bound to the present day. Varying in age from sixty-six to eighty-nine, they answered the following questions:
When did you bind your feet? (and, if the feet had been let out) When did you let them out?
How did your mother feel when she first began binding your feet?
What shape of bound foot was considered most beautiful?
What was the relationship between footbinding and age?
Was it painful to walk with bound feet?
How far could one walk on bound feet?
How was the foot bound?
What did you do when you went to sleep?
How often were your feet rebound?
What were the shape and color of the shoes?
Were shoes and cloth part of the dowry?
How prevalent was this practice?
(If the feet were let out) Why were your feet let out?
When did this practice originate?
This study is of limited scope and makes no pretense of being definitive, but it has elicited information as to how women of this century reacted to footbinding. Our questions and the replies of informants are recorded below; informants are referred to by a number in parentheses. (Regular footnotes are numbered without parentheses.)
A. When did you start footbinding and when did you give it up?
(The Chinese add a year at birth, so one year should be subtracted to determine the chronological age.)
There was a wide variation in the starting age, ranging from three to twelve. Some informants volunteered details:
I started to bind my feet when seven or eight years old and let them out in about 1918 or 1919. The revolutionary army was then fighting with the military warlords; to flee from the calamities of war, many women let their feet out for convenience, and thus started a trend. (4)
I began footbinding at the age of nine, but before nine I wore small shoes to prevent my feet from getting any larger. I let them out during the Japanese occupation but later rebound them again. (7)
I started when four or five. At first my foot was merely wrapped around with a cloth to keep it from growing larger. I started to bind tightly when about fifteen years old. (11)
The usual age for starting [in South China among the upper class] was between three and four. The child was carried and didn’t walk about for three to four years afterwards. The shoe was smaller than the foot, with the rear part of the foot extending beyond the shoes. (13)
Most Taiwanese girls were six when they began to have their feet bound. However, some said that it was easier to have this done at an earlier age. (12)
According to one writer, it was customary in the villages to begin between five and seven years of age. The bones were still fragile, and the foot could easily be bound small. If one waited longer, the hardening of the bones impeded the process, and the sufferings of the child increased immeasurably. Another generalized that, “Most begin from five to eight years of age. Parents inflict this process when the child is barely able to travel about on its own. Upper-class families begin it when their children are four years old.” In Peking at the turn of the century, feet were generally bound at seven, with the earliest and latest ages for starting being four and eight, respectively. It took five or six years to complete the compression.
B. Who taught you how to bind your feet?
The replies indicate that a mother almost always personally taught her daughters, with grandmother occasionally assisting. At least in one instance, the wife did not start binding until she had first secured the husband’s consent. (11) Somewhere between the ages of eight and thirteen, girls began binding their feet themselves and unaided. One woman stated that ". . . after about the age of thirteen, I began to bind them myself as tightly as I could, so they would look pretty.” (5) To another lady, this became a portent of her mother’s death:
The footbinding was started when the coming of the new lunar year was being celebrated. Mother told me that she wanted to make me a pair of red shoes to wear, but I replied that I wanted white shoes and didn’t like red shoes. This was an ill portent, as Mother died soon afterwards. [To the Chinese, the color white symbolizes death.] I was eight years old when I started footbinding by myself, and was taught to do so by my foster mother. (6)
Yang Mien (7) was seized by conflicting emotions, the desire to be beautiful and the fear of intense pain:
Grandmother helped me bind my feet, but she died when I was ten, and from then on Mother helped me. Mother was very strict. My foot felt very painful at the start. The heel of my foot became odoriferous and deteriorated. Cotton and wine were used to cure it. Because of the pain in my foot, my whole body became emaciated. My face color changed and I couldn’t sleep at night, frightening my mother. I did not dare stealthily remove the binding cloth because of the pain, for I would have been beaten. When I saw how pretty the tiny feet of others were, I liked that very much. My cousin told me that no one wanted to marry a woman with big feet, while a woman with tiny feet was considered most beautiful.
Ch’eng Cheng Chien (8) remembered the early days of binding as a sort of pleasant family get-together. Mrs. Ting (10) said:
I thought it interesting and amusing to have a white cloth wrapped around my feet. . . . Mother taught me [how to bind]. Grandmother was still alive and in good spirits, so sometimes she helped with the instruction.
Mrs. Liu had her feet bound rather late, after the Revolution:
I was born in Shanghai and spent the years from three to eight in Canton. In 1915, at the age of twelve, while in Fuchow, Fukien, I started footbinding. Mother didn’t want my feet to get too large, so she had me wear linen shoes. I didn’t oppose this, as I also wanted a sleek, slim foot. The method was to use a square white binding, bound very tightly. It was covered with a tissue paper [a type of writing paper] so that I could get my feet into linen socks and then shoes. This was rebound every night. A ribbon was placed on the top of the binding, about four to six inches above the ankle. The foot would become larger if washed, so it was usually kept bound, and alum was used. I kept the binding on when asleep, but sometimes opened it at night against my mother’s orders, which had to be obeyed. I would bind it again in the morning. I bound my feet for three years, but gave up the practice in 1918 when I started middle school.
Our Nan-t’un informant from Taiwan (12) stated that:
As a rule, the girl’s feet were bound by her mother. The mother, in order to persuade a daughter to let the feet be bound, told her how important it was and also how nice it was to do this. During the footbinding era, the daughters of wealthy families were supposed to have their feet bound. In this way, they could show others that they were neither the daughters of poor families nor maid servants; because at that time poor women and maid servants usually did not have their feet bound.
The majority of girls had their feet bound whether they liked it or not. However, when the mother started the binding, the girl would cry out with pain and wish to discontinue. If the girls had a chance, they would secretly undo the bindings. Sometimes, because of the tightness of the binding, the girl’s feet became swollen and the skin turned a bluish color.