Generally when people are referring to foot binding, they are referring to the restructuring of the feet by the breaking of the arch and four smaller toes on each foot for the purpose of achieving small feet for females. Difficult to imagine, but it is the bending of the metatarsals after the four smaller toes have been bound into the plantars. It is somewhat like bending a corner of a paper so that it is tucked under.
After the initial binding procedure, usually around the age of seven, the feet would remain tightly bound with long cloth strips until the feet were no longer growing. Idealistic feet for women were three inches in length, which earned the title of san tsun gin lian, or golden lotus or lily. The perfect three-inch foot.
Legend has it that footbinding began during the Shang dynasty (1700-1027 B.C.), ordered by an empress who had a clubfoot. But historical records date the practice to a later dynasty: An emperor was captivated by a concubine, a talented dancer who bound her feet to suggest the shape of a new moon and performed a "lotus dance."
Footbinding was first banned in 1912, but some continued binding their feet in secret. Some of the last survivors of this barbaric practice are still living in Liuyicun, a village in Southern China's Yunnan province.