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Foot binding gradually spread from the upper class of society to the lower class. It is believed that women chose foot binding could make themselves respected by society, thereby improving their social status and bringing honour, prestige, and money. Women who did not bind their feet would only becam slaves, but a woman with her feet bound could marry a rich man. Women were not seen by society as having their independent personality or productivity, but as a commodity. The body and labor of unmarried daughters belonged to their parents, thereby the boundaries between work and kinship for women are blurred. Parents wanted their daughters to realize that unpleasant things were inevitable and they could not control their bodies, and daughters who did not bind their feet would experience more torture when they grew up. People in different regions had different acceptance of foot binding. The average foot binding age was 12 years in coastal areas and 7 years in inland areas. When women could do light industry without the need to farm or carry heavy things, foot binding became common. Women who did heavy work often did not bind their feet, because binding their feet hindered physical work. The daughters of wealthy people mostly bound their feet. Gates believes that the disappearance of foot binding has nothing to do with the opposition of missionaries and political activities. When the light industry market collapsed, women could only choose to do heavy work, so the foot binding disappeared. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the reasons that prevented the foot binding were changes in politics and people's consciousness, as well as the development of the industry. After two generations, the foot binding disappeared in China forever.[1]
Bossen, Laurel, et al. “Feet and Fabrication: Footbinding and Early Twentieth-Century Rural Women's Labor in Shaanxi.” Modern China, vol. 37, no. 4, 2011, pp. 347–383. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23053328. Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.
Brown, Melissa J., et al. “Sociocultural Epistasis and Cultural Exaptation in Footbinding, Marriage Form, and Religious Practices in Early 20th-Century Taiwan.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 106, no. 52, 2009, pp. 22139–22144. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40536412. Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.
Gates, Hill. “Footloose in Fujian: Economic Correlates of Footbinding.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 43, no. 1, 2001, pp. 130–148. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2696625. Accessed 22 Oct. 2020.
Mackie, Gerry. “Ending Footbinding and Infibulation: A Convention Account.” American Sociological Review, vol. 61, no. 6, 1996, pp. 999–1017. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2096305. Accessed 29 Sept. 2020.
BROWN, MELISSA J., et al. “Marriage Mobility and Footbinding in Pre-1949 Rural China: A Reconsideration of Gender, Economics, and Meaning in Social Causation.” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 71, no. 4, 2012, pp. 1035–1067. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23357433. Accessed 29 Sept. 2020
- ^ Gates, Hill (2001). "Footloose in Fujian: Economic Correlates of Footbinding". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 43 (1): 130–148. ISSN 0010-4175.