Foot-binding

The ancient Chinese had a strange custom known as foot binding. This practice, which persisted from the tenth to the twentieth century, causing serious permanent disability for millions of older women. According to a study by the University of California at San Francisco in the United States, a large percentage of cases of osteoporosis in China, a disorder in which compromised the structural integrity of bone can be attributed to the prevalence and consequences of foot binding. The random sample of 193 women, aged 70-80, in Beijing, fifty-foot deformity were tied.

Historians trace the practice of foot-binding back to the Sung dynasty (960-976 BC). They argue that started as an imitation of an imperial concubine who was required to dance with their feet tied. Noting that the view appeal to the Emperor and who want to earn his favor by offering their daughters as concubines, many parents began binding their daughters feet '. By the twelfth century, the practice was widespread and toughest foot-girls' were so closely related to and early in life.

In further retrospection, historians say that the foot binding persisted reason was that it provided the richest men in order to prevent their wives or concubines to leave home for girls with bound feet found the simple act of walking ability extremely painful.

Usually, parents began binding the feet of their daughters, aged three years. All fingers except the big toe (the innermost first digit of each foot) were broken, his feet were so closely bound with strips of cloth to prevent them from growing larger than ten centimeters. This caused the soles of your feet to bend in extreme concavity. The girls were then made to wear a particular type of footwear called lotus shoes, which were made of leather or, sometimes, steel and that has prevented the further growth of the bones of the foot.

The end of the leg of most vertebrates, the foot is used mainly for locomotion. In humans, its important areas during the years of a child, when a child begins to learn to walk. Therefore, it is truly regrettable that a body-as disfigure custom of foot binding continued for centuries. Fortunately, the cruel practice ceased in 1911, when the new Chinese republic finally banned. / (C) 2004 ideas elf