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The continued bandaging of adult feet makes the difference between comfort and pain. Provided the small feet are bandaged and the lady wears her shoes then they can move perfectly well. The mistake made by the missionaries at the beginning of the 20th century was they forced the feet to be unbound and left the women (and men) crippled for life. During the Revolution, small feet were a give away of anti-communist communities. What a choice either wearing Lotus shoes and being killed , or going unbound and crippled for life. Many of the women who survived belonged to remote communities where the communists were less active.
The modern primitive (people who are tatooed and scarified as a fashion statment) will also bind their feet today. The fashion is followed with the intention of wearing small sized shoes. Binding is much less severe but no less painful to the adult foot. Cosmetic surgery including toe amputations are part of the same movement. The European fashion for foot binding came to vogue during the 17th century and many courtisans had their feet tightly bound to wear smaller shoes to impress the Regent. Like today, the heel-less pump became the fashion shoe of choice.
A case study of Chinese bound feet: application of footprint analysis.
Reischl U, Nandikolla V, Colby C, Mijović B, Wei HC. Coll Antropol. 2008 Jun;32(2):629-32.
Quote:
Foot print patterns of the bound feet of a 90-year-old Chinese female were made to obtain insight into the ergonomic consequences of a Chinese custom that caused significant disabilities for many women throughout history. Pressure patterns were evaluated using the techniques applied to standard thumb print analsyis. A digital summary of the pressure patterns were compared to the patterns obtained from a normal subject. The outcomes indicated that the bound foot produced greater plantar tissue pressures than the non-bound foot. These observations help explain the discomfort, gait abnormalities, and disabilities exhibited by many older women with bound feet living in China today. Although foot-binding is no longer practiced, this study offers an ergonomic perspective on a custom practiced in China for centuries.
Chinese foot binding
Linear Mode
