Chinese foot binding had been a notably barbaric process that persisted mainly in rural China until recently. It was mostly a social practice. The technique involved the very tight binding of the feet of young girls and the keeping of them bound to stop the feet from growing. This is a tortuous practice and ended in considerable deformity and incapacity. Those who ended up being put through this practice had to use specifically created and made shoes. There was quite an art to this and the shoes that these children needed to use were ornamented quite purposely and exotically. The actual cause of the process of Chinese foot binding was that smaller sized feet were considered much more attractive in women. A much better price is usually demanded by the family of the bride to be for the dowry.
The practice was very common in rural China for several centuries and only recently began to die out about 100 years ago resulting from social pressures which were brought to bear on the practice a result of the pain and disability it has been creating. You can still find a number of older Chinese woman alive today with these disfigured feet from the binding in their youth. The tragedy is because of what happened once they were kids they do need to keep their feet bound since it is more comfortable than not having them bound as the deformity has become so great. There has been plenty of social and psychological analysis of the foot binding particularly in the framework of this being done too please the men instead of being of any advantage to the female. Of the latest consideration is the current practice of women using tight fitting high heel footwear has drawn characteristics with Chinese foot binding. Some of the social and psychological evaluation of that have certainly mentioned the analogy among the two practices and who exactly benefits from the practice. Both of them are painful, both create foot deformity, and both are for the benefit of men.