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Essay On Foot Binding

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Essay On Foot Binding
Randilynn Schmidt & Lauren Johnson
Ms. North
Period 3
September 14, 2015

Foot Binding

“Beauty is not in the face, Beauty is the light in the heart.” – Kahlil Gibran. However true this utterance may be, in nearly every culture all through history, women have been required to undertake major and sometimes painful physical modifications in the insistence of the name of beauty and social status. The Chinese tradition of foot binding could be considered to be among the most barbarous of traditions. With that being said the custom of binding young girl’s feet played a salient mantel in the history of china.
The practice of foot binding was extensively spread in the 10th and 20th centuries in China. Foot binding usually began when the female …show more content…
This custom from China was banned in 1912 but women still furtively bound their feet together. Foot binding was said to be inspired by a tenth-century court dancer named Yao Niang who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon. She mesmerized Emperor Li Yu by dancing on her toes inside a six-foot golden lotus designed with ribbons and precious stones. In the article, Why Foot-binding Persisted in China for a Millennium by Amanda Foreman she says “The truth, no matter how unpalatable, is that foot-binding was experienced, perpetuated and administered by women.” Women orchestrated this practiced because it was the only way that they could marry into a wealthy …show more content…
Women did not have a choice in the custom. They either did it or had a chance of being married into a wealthy family or not doing it and maybe getting married to an ethnic soldier. It did little to help increase their wealth because women still had to do house work and help the family. But because of the inability to do these things the family paid for it. In the article, Why Foot-binding Persisted in China for a Millennium by Amanda Foreman she says “These women disfigured their feet to guarantee their own future, but according to Yang Yang, this act ultimately consigned them to tragic lives.” Yang Yang is a women that was interviewed because she had foot binding done to her as
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