Ties That Bind, Ties That Break By Lensey Namioka Thorndike
Press - Large Print, (2003) Genre: Young Adult, Historical
Fiction Reviewed by Anna Dogole - December 22, 2003 The practice
of foot binding has a long and contentious history. For
centuries, Chinese women were purposely crippled by having their
feet forced into tight little balls. This was done when the
women were very young, and it began by pushing their toes toward
the ball of their foot, and tightly binding them into place.
Only their big toes were left free. Over time their feet were
permanently deformed. Ostensibly, the reason for this practice
was that tiny feet were prized in China as a sign of beauty.
Bound feet were also a sign of social standing as women with
bound feet could not easily walk, and therefore could not do
manual labor. Therefore, only peasants left the feet of their
daughters unbound. The practice of foot binding began to go out
of fashion in the late 1890's, and it was officially banned by
the government of the new Republic o