Chinese custom. The precise origins of this custom are unkown, but the the custom first appeared during the tenth century
Tang dynasty. Foot binding was accomplished by binding a young girl's feet with tight strips of
linen, thereby inhibiting the foot's growth. Since the top toe was bent backwards and the other toes were tucked under the foot, thereby breaking the arch, the process was extremely painful and left the girl in an almost crippled state. Girls who were considered suitably attractive were selected for this process between the ages of five and twelve.
In the earliest inicidents of this ritualistic disfiguration, the bound foot had strong sexual meaning, and it was fetishized as a sexual object in poetry (calling bound feet the "golden lotus"). The mincing walk of the women was considered erotically stimulating.
Foot binding reached the height of its popularity in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). It started as only an upperclass custom, but soon became adopted at all social levels, and only those peasants who could not afford to lose a worker abstained from the practice. The woman with bound feet was a status symbol for the family, showing that they could successfully take on such a burden. By the beginning of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), no woman with unbound feet could expect to get a good offer of marriage.
Foot binding was banned with the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912, and the practice began to decline steadily after that. Another ban in 1949, decreed by the People's Republic of China was moot, as the practice had all but disappeared.