Could you imagine if a person were to grab your little toes, curl them under your foot, and bind your feet tightly with long strips of cloth？ This practice was called foot binding. There are a number of suggestions concerning the origins of foot binding, but generally, it originated from the time of Emperor Li Yu. He was a ruler of the Southern Tang. Emperor Li Yu asked his concubine to bind her feet in white silk, which restricted normal growth and gave her feet a pronounced arch. Foot binding was carried out on young girls from the age of five to eight. The purpose of this long and tormenting process was to make their feet as small as possible, no longer than 4 inches. The smaller the feet, the more attractive they were. Foot binding started with the royal court and then spread throughout China at that time. It became a required procedure for all royal females, and then to girls of wealthy families. These women inevitably became confined to their home and were dependent on personal servants for their every need. What may have started out as a fashion for small feet quickly became a symbol of social status and a distinct mark of elegance. In other words, bound feet were necessary to protect the honor of a family. While we may feel great sympathy for these upper-class women, the situation for women of lower classes, who were expected to continue with heavy labor at home as well as in the fields, must have been far worse. By the 21st century, only a few elderly women remained with bound feet. As this practice spread throughout the general population in China, it lasted for nearly a thousand years. It is estimated that nearly a billion women endured the suffering foot binding has inflicted.