t, I., 48) which _every_ girl _must_ submit to have in
obedience to inexorable custom, unless she is prepared to be an object
of scorn and ridicule all her life.

The tyranny of fashion in prescribing disfigurements and mutilations
is not confined to savages. The most amazing illustration of it is to
be found in China, where the girls of the upper classes are obliged to
this day to submit to the most agonizing process of crippling their
feet, which finally, as Professor Flower remarks in his book on
_Fashion and Deformity_, assume "the appearance of the hoof of some
animal rather than a human foot." There is a popular delusion that the
Chinese approve of such deformed small feet because they consider them
beautiful--a delusion which Westermarck shares (200). Since the
Chinese consider small feet "the chief charm of women," it might be
supposed, he says, that the women would at least have the pleasure of
fascinating men by a "beauty" to acquire which they have to undergo
such horrible torture;

"but Dr. Strieker assures us that in China a woman is
considered immodest if she shows her artificially distorted
feet to a man. It is even improper to speak of a woman's
foot, and in decent pictures this part is always concealed
under the dress."

To explain this apparent anomaly Westermarck assumes that the object
of the concealment "is to excite through the unknown!" To such
fantastic nonsense does the doctrine of sexual selection lead. In
reality there is no reason for supposing that the Chinese consider
crippled feet--looking like "the hoof of an animal"--beautiful any
more than mutilations of other parts of the body. In all probability
the origin of the custom of crippling women's feet must be traced to
the jealousy of the men, who devised this procedure as an effective
way of preventing their wives from leaving their homes and indulging
in amorous intrigues; other practices with the same purpose being
common in Oriental countries. In course of time the foot-binding
became an inexorable fashion which the foolishly conservative women
were more eager to continue than the men. All accounts agree that the
anti-foot-binding movement finds its most violent and stubborn
opponents in the women themselves. The _Missionary Review_ for July,
1899, contains an article summing up a report of the _Tien Tsu Hui,_
or "Natural Foot Society," which throws a bright light on the whole
question and from which I quote