There was a verifiable late-thirteenth-century reference to a prominent official towards the close of the Sung who had lived in a region of Shensi where women neither pierced their ears nor bound their feet. The writer thought it relevant to note that certain women did not observe such customs, indicating that by the start of Mongol rule natural-footedness in Shensi must have seemed rather unusual.
During the Yuan dynasty, footbinding was gradually transmitted from the north to the center and south of China. The Chinese may have emphasized it in order to draw a clearer cultural distinction between themselves and their large-footed conquerors. Perhaps the Mongols encouraged it in order to weaken the Chinese by impairing the health of their women. In songs, poems, and plays of the period, there were frequent references to three-inch golden lotuses. The following poem by Sa’dulla (born 1308) implies that by the fourteenth century the foot was probably much more compressed than it had been in the Sung:
Footbinding, as we have seen, widened its popular base under Mongol rule. We should therefore expect to find frequent notice of it by foreigners then coming to China for the first time. And yet, there was apparently no mention of it in the records of visitors prior to or during the Yuan dynasty, with the exception of one. The reason may be that feet were not then bound to so small a degree that a foreigner would notice the difference in contrast with a natural foot, or that women of the upper classes who had diminutive feet were carefully secluded and kept out of the view of foreigners. Marco Polo (1254-1324), writing when footbinding was practiced by the courtesan as well as the genteel lady, surprisingly made no reference to it in his chronicle. This may be a reflection on his faulty powers of observation. A contemporary of Marco Polo named Friar Odoric of Pordenone (died January, 1331), in northern China about 1324, was the first foreigner to write about the custom, stating in his travelogue: “And with the women the great beauty is to have little feet; and for this reason, mothers are accustomed, as soon as girls are born to them, to swathe their feet tightly so that they can never grow in the least.” This Western record was slightly earlier in actual date of publication than the Chinese reference which stated that footbinding had originated in Li Yu’s imperial harem towards the end of the Five Dynasties period.
Footbinding was more popular during the Ming dynasty than in any before it, receiving official and popular sanction. Palace ladies wore a special tiny bowed shoe, different from all others.The first Ming emperor had an unusually large-footed empress. He once jokingly asked her how she had ever become so eminent with such large feet; she replied that large feet had been essential in order to firmly pacify the nation. Her remark was a reminder to the monarch that, because she was natural-footed, she had been able to accompany him on military expeditions prior to unification. On Lantern Festival Day, occurring during the first lunar month, the emperor went strolling about the streets disguised as a commoner. It was then the custom for people to write or draw riddles on lanterns during the festival as amusement for the passers-by. The emperor saw a drawing on one lantern of a big-footed woman sitting and holding a watermelon in her lap. He guessed that she was supposed to be from Anhwei and that the empress was being made the target of ridicule. The next day, he ordered the clan responsible for the drawing executed, down to the remotest relative; over three hundred lost their lives. This incident shows that footbinding so flourished in early Ming that the natural-footed woman was considered ridiculous. During Ming rule, Mongols still living in the Chekiang area were officially discriminated against by being prevented from engaging in studies if men or from binding their feet if women. Binding was as highly regarded for the proper woman as learning was for the cultivated man, and conservative families transmitted the saying, “If you care for a son, you don’t go easy on his studies; if you care for a daughter, you don’t go easy on her footbinding.”
Toward the close of the Ming dynasty, rebel Chang Hsien-chung occupied Hsiang-yang in Hupeh and cut off the hands of men and the legs of women whom he captured. He made two large and separate mounds from the severed hands and feet. The mound of hands was called the Peak of the Jade Arms; the mound of feet was called the Peak of the Golden Lotuses. He did this, according to one account, to fulfill a vow to Heaven that he would offer up to it two trays of candles if he were cured of malarial attacks. No one understood what he meant, but upon being cured he ordered the mounds constructed and severed the slender legs of one of his concubines in order to place them on top of the pile. This gruesome incident further proves that footbinding flourished as never before toward the close of the Ming dynasty. Another account, written about a palace lady who alone escaped massacre of the occupants of a royal harem at Hsiang-yang by the forces of Chang Hsien-chung, alleged that the rebels played a gambling game with the feet after they were severed. The last Ming emperor was a lover of the lotus who esteemed his Precious Consort T’ien because her feet were both tiny in appearance and perfectly compressed in form. He once reputedly became extremely displeased because the Precious Consort accepted a gift of elegant tiny shoes from an official admirer, reproved the woman, and became ill-disposed towards the man.
Ming poets, novelists, and diarists frequently referred to bound feet and praised their dainty beauty. Chin P’ing Mei, for instance, the late-sixteenth-century erotic novel made accessible to the West through Clinton Egerton’s four-volume translation, revealed how the tiny foot was regarded by affluent society of the author’s day. It was advertised by matchmakers as a praiseworthy attribute; the shoe in which it was encased flirtatiously suggested concealment, mystery, and boudoir pleasures. Well-to-do ladies took pride in their small and well-proportioned “golden lotuses,” designed shoes for them of crimson silk, and wore especially attractive models when preparing for bed. The sleeping shoes, scarlet in hue, were intended to heighten male desire through a striking color contrast with the white skin of the beloved. Making the shoes was a painstaking process, and a lady might become infuriated if her shoes were dirtied or stolen. In a fit of rage, she might cut a rival’s shoes to shreds. The shoes played a role in drinking games, but wine was not drunk directly from them, as Egerton erroneously translates, but from cups placed in them.
Bound-foot ladies rode in sedan chairs when they visited friends or attended such formal occasions as funerals. The implication in Chin P’ing Mei, however, is that the tiny feet which peeped from beneath a woman’s skirts did not prevent her from moving about quickly and painlessly.
Hsi-men Ch’ing, the central character of the novel, was a profligate who cared more for the thing-in-itself than its outer trappings, of which the lotus was but one. He was in no way an avid lotus lover and might have looked askance at the aficionados who even willingly drank the foot-washing water when the passion seized them. (There are numerous verified references in Ts’ai-fei lu to this sort of bizarre behavior.) Hsi-men Ch’ing might tie a woman’s legs to trellis or bedpost with her own bindings, but his sexual manipulations of the lotus go unmentioned. He might admire the feet aesthetically and raise them above his shoulders during intercourse, but in Chin P’ing Mei the usual insistence of the lotus lover on smelling, rubbing, and caressing the bared flesh was conspicuous by its absence.