Hi Deb:

> --- Jay Heuman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > Naturally, one must ask who saw this as a problem?  Did
the
> > Chinese people?  Did ALL the Chinese people?  Did SOME
> > Chinese people?
>
> According to my Chinese officemate, she said that all
Chinese
> women had their feet bound. If they didn't, they couldn't
get a
> husband and they needed a husband to survive.

BUT, to focus on the questions I posed, was this viewed as
"a problem"?

(To give a contemporary reply is to take foot binding out of
its cultural context.  Most likely, our contemporaries would
view this as a problem . . . and those who initiated the
Revolution in 1911 viewed it as a problem.  But did women
during the T'ang, Song, Ming and Ching Dynasties?)

> The practice was around for about 300 years.

I sent in a URL with plenty of information
(http://www.angelfire.com/ca/beekeeper/foot.html).

The practice was around a lot longer than 300 years.  A
quotation from the aforementioned web site:

        Foot binding began late in the T'ang Dynasty (618-906)
        and it gradually spread through the upper class during
        the Song Dynasty (960-1297). During the Ming period
        (1368-1644) and the Ching Dynasty (1644-1911) the
        custom of foot binding spread through the overwhelming
        majority of the Chinese population until it was finally
        outlawed in the 1911 Revolution of Sun Yat-Sen. In fact,
        the only peoples to avoid this custom were the Manchu
        conquerors, The Hakka Chinese migrant groups in south
        China and the mean people, the lowest class of people
        in China who were below the social norms. The practice
        of foot binding lasted for approximately one thousand
        years. During this time, approximately one billion women
        had their feet bound.

Still, my issue was and remains with cultural relativism -
the assumption that one can judge other cultures (especially
passed cultural phenomena) based on one's own cultural
standards.

Sincerely,

Jay Heuman, Visitor & Volunteer Services Coordinator
Joslyn Art Museum, 2200 Dodge Street, Omaha, NE, 68102
342-3300 (telephone)     342-2376 (fax)     www.joslyn.org

Copyright retained.
My opinions - no one else's.
If you have a problem with what I wrote, take it up with me
personally.
If this is illegal where you are, do not read it!

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