MOLLY:
Do you think I am too young to start binding my feet? I just got some Lotus Shoes and I am about to outgrow them.
DOLLOP:
Molly, there will be other shoes in your future that are designed to make your feet look very small. The shoes will probably be longer than 3 inches, but they will be so pointy that your toes will be deformed in no time. In fact, in the modern aesthetic, a 3-inch HEEL has replaced the desired length, so the “rule of 3” is still in effect. This will cause you to balance on the balls of your feet, as if on tippy-toes, and not only corrupt your feet but cause some pelvic and spinal curvature, an added bonus.
The 3-inch foot in tiny Lotus shoes was a status symbol for Chinese women until the 20th Century. The practice took hold in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) when one of the Emperor’s 999 concubines said: “Hey, big guy, my feet are smaller than * hers. *” This play for attention did not work because the 998 others took up binding their feet, rapido prestissimo.
Women with 3-inch feet were high class because they could not do much, for example, work. They could not get up without help, stand up straight, or even support themselves. They had trouble squatting, which an ancient Chinese person needed to do several times a day. They had to be carried around. They looked down on those with * normal feet.* The only job they could do, of course, was to sit around and look pretty, in case the Emperor found his way to their bed, getting past 998 other competing beauties.
Mean people have pointed out that those with bound feet could also not * run away. * I should mention that all concubines were not extremely happy. Our very own Mormon men, who had a rule about not having more than 999 wives or concubines, also had to grant bunches of divorces. You can imagine what this does to our divorce statistics when a man has 55 wives and 10 want to divorce him. Of course, the Mormons avoided some divorces by having wives who are “sealed” to the man after death. These deceased “wives” can never divorce him or run away whether they have bound feet or not. Unless they do that in heaven, which might be possible if you are Mormon. Maybe they should have tried some kind of posthumous binding.
The number “9” is lucky for Chinese and Mormon men.
I don’t imagine the Tang concubines and others were seen skipping in the courtyard, hip-hop dancing, or jogging on the Great Wall. Maybe they had special secret prosthetic feet, like little skis, they could wear when they really wanted to move around, for example to make it easier to do some squatting.
They might have passed the time discussing who was a “real wife” and who was a “concubine.” The wife had higher status. On the other hand, a concubine could be a later precious acquisition of the Emperor. “Last in, first noticed,” hey?
Concubines are really like wives in that they “cohabit” with the extended family. It is sort of like the “live-in” and the “live-out” nanny. In America, there are a lot of people cohabiting but we do not call them concubines. Yet. I am sure there are people in America who would like to do more than bind the feet of a few “live-out” concubines.
The practice of binding feet was banned in China as late as 1911. Apparently, banning something so much fun and precious is hard. Like banning polygamy. A study of women in Beijing in 1997 found that 38 percent of the women in their 80’s and 18 percent in their 70’s had bound-foot deformities. You don’t see them on the street much, obviously, because who has time to carry granny around? As late as 1991, the Zhiqiang Shoe Factory stopped making Lotus Shoes, although they sold about 2000 pairs a year for a few years after that.
Remember the rule of “3:” starting at age 3, keep those toes tucked for the 3-inch Lotus Shoe. If you miss crunch time, go for pointy stilettos. Hope for the joys of the 999th concubine.
