It
is Madame Wu Ting-Fang, wife of the Chinese Minister at Washington,
who has recently returned from a visit to her old home, who says: "The
first penetrating influence of exterior civilisation on the customs of
my country has touched the conditions of women. The emancipation of
woman in China means, first of all, the liberation of her feet, and
this is coming. Indeed, it has already come in a measure, for the
style in feet has changed. Wee bits of feet, those no longer than an
infant's, are no longer the fashion. When I went back home I found
that the rigid binding and forcing back of the feet was largely a
thing of the past. China, with other nations, has come to regard that
practice as barbarous, but the small feet, those that enable a woman
to walk a little and do not inconvenience her in getting about the
house, are still favoured by the Chinese ladies."
The custom of binding and destroying the feet, no doubt, arose from
the low views entained by Chinese sages concerning woman, and from
a lack of confidence in her sense of honour and virtue. She must be
maimed so that she cannot go about at will, so she shall be completely
under the eye of her husband, held as it were in fetters.
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