In antiquity, there was no distinction between women’s feet and men’s. In the Zhou Rituals, there is mention of the footwear master, “in charge of the ceremonial footwear used by the king and queen. He makes red and black double-soled shoes, red-bordered shoes and yellow bordered shoes, shoes with green on the double seam of the toe, plain single-soled shoes, hemp single-soled shoes, the ruddy brown formal footwear for outside and inside, the work-shoes, and the casual wear, both for men and women.”1 From this we can see that the shoes of both men and women were made the same in appearance, not like the women’s shoes of today, which are arched and petite. Now, we value small feet and small shoes.
References for bound feet arise in the Southern Tang dynasty (937-975) with Li Houzhu.2Houzhu had in his harem of royal consorts a concubine called Yao Niang. She was very slender and beautiful, and skilled in dance. And so, Houzhu ordered the crafting of a large golden lotus for her that was as tall as six feet high; and he adorned her with precious treasures such as a tasseled macrame belt and necklace with many jade-like stones. And, in the very center of his creation was a brilliantly blooming lotus. He directed Yao Niang to use cloth to bind up her feet into an arch so that they resembled the shape of the crescent moon and put on silk slippers. He then instructed her to dance for him in the middle of the lotus. She revolved and pirouetted as if rising into the clouds.3 In view of this all, many began to imitate her. These were the beginnings of footbinding.
Before the Tang, these trends had not been introduced yet. Thus, the poets who then sung the praises of the most beautiful and feminine women--of their radiant looks and elegant beauty, of their youthful complexions, and even of their facial cosmetics, their ornamented hair styles, their adorned gowns and dresses, or of the purity of their hair, eyes, lips, teeth, waists, hands, and wrists--relished incessantly but never once in mentioned with all of their words the smallness of women’s feet.
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The text, “Instructions for Women from the Straightened Bamboo Pavilion” says, Ben Shou asked his mother, “why is it that girls must bind their feet?” His mother responded,“The gods favored women, and caused it so that women would not be easily exalted. If Fan Ju’s feet had been bound, then he would have never entered the state of Qin.4 Women may be a good comparison. All of this occurred long before the Han dynasty.”
Those who tell these stories and others about the footwear of women are indeed numerous. Nevertheless, these stories seem doubtful.
1 Here Yu Huai quotes the Zhouli, and the translation of this quoted passage is derived from James Steele, The I-li, or Book of Etiquette and Ceremonial Volume I (London: Probsthain Co., 1917), 13.
2 Li Houzhu or Li Yu (r. 961-975) was the last ruler of the Southern Tang, and was a master of the arts, particularly ci poetry, which he is responsible for innovating and popularizing during the middle imperial period.
3 Lin Yutang makes an interesting point concerning the dance involving the billowing of the sleeves, as if in the manner of billowing clouds.
4 Fan Ju (d. 255 BCE), was a talented and able statesman, but came from an impoverished background. Though he succeeded in demonstrating his talent and abilities, more often than not those talents and abilities caused others to be jealous and plot against him. He suffered imprisonment and nearly died in his native state of Wei because he outshined a senior official, though he saved Wei by doing so. This was only the beginning of his troubles, as he escaped Wei and fled to the state of Qin, which was recruiting talented ministers for their growing administration. While escaping to or entering Qin, he narrowly escaped death once again. He was later elevated to the post of Prime Minister because of the shrewd counsel he gave to the King of Qin. He was ultimately responsible for the political and military strategies that led to the rise of Qin, and prepared its way for unification. His rise to power, however, came at great costs, because he is seen as unfortunate, in that he faced the same dilemmas at the height of his power that he suffered in the beginning—the jealousy and betrayal of others; the idiomatic phrase, “bu ru Qin,” then purports to a Confucian sentiment, that it is better not to seek one’s success in an environment like unto the Qin court, which fostered an malicious sense of competition and political desire. Reference Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian, Qin Dynasty, Burton Watson, trans. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 131-157.
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