That reason is fashion. The tattoo marks are tribal signs
(Bancroft, 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.
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