Manchu enforcers got their priority right: tough on foot-binding, soft on queue

Fenestella

Banned
During and after the Manchu conquest of China, their agenda included the imposition of the queue and the ban on foot-binding; they succeeded in the former through extreme violence and failed in the latter due to lack of will.

If somehow, they viewed foot-binding as a worse sign of insubordination and nonconformity, and directed their ruthless efforts towards the ban on foot-binding rather than imposing the queue, what kind of resistance would they meet?

Would they marginalize the practice of foot-binding, or even eradicate it like the later reformers did?
 
From any political (if not ethical) viewpoint the Manchus did get it right. People with queues mattered far more than people with bound foot, queues were much more visible, etc.
 

Fenestella

Banned
From any political (if not ethical) viewpoint the Manchus did get it right. People with queues mattered far more than people with bound foot, queues were much more visible, etc.
That's why I wrote "If somehow, they viewed foot-binding as a worse sign of insubordination and nonconformity" instead of "if they had the best interest of the Han people at heart"
 
That's why I wrote "If somehow, they viewed foot-binding as a worse sign of insubordination and nonconformity" instead of "if they had the best interest of the Han people at heart"

Foot-binding was far from universal. The peasants didn't do it, because they could hit a famine any given decade and couldn't spare multiple farm laborers per family. And the peasants were China - most dynasties ended with peasant rebellions, especially dynasties like the Qing that involved non-Han peoples in power.

So the question is "What if the conquerors viewed parenting choices regarding daughters by a tiny minority of parents as a higher priority than visible displays of loyalty by the enormous mass of potential rebels who despised the regime as foreign invaders?"

The answer is actually fairly straightforward. Such a case would be indicative of tremendous incompetence, which would most likely prevent the Manchu from establishing a long-lasting dynasty. Foot-binding would continue in most of China, and the queue would remain in the northeast.
 
The question is how many of the potential rebel will actually commit without the affront to their morality and virility without the Qing's tonsorial castration. The Qing quickly resumed the examination system, and had far and away the strongest military force in China for centuries. With a firm grasp of both carrot and stick, there's no way the queue was worth all the resentment it built up.
 
The question is how many of the potential rebel will actually commit without the affront to their morality and virility without the Qing's tonsorial castration. The Qing quickly resumed the examination system, and had far and away the strongest military force in China for centuries. With a firm grasp of both carrot and stick, there's no way the queue was worth all the resentment it built up.

How do you figure? The resentment went nowhere and accomplished nothing particularly challenging to the regime for two and a half centuries. Meanwhile, the imposition of the queue was a remarkably effective litmus test for forcing powerful symbolic gestures of submission from Chinese communities and hopelessly isolating diehards.

The examination and military systems were necessary, but that reflects in no way on whether or not the queue was an effective political tool.

And it really was.
 

Fenestella

Banned
Foot-binding was far from universal. The peasants didn't do it,
parenting choices regarding daughters by a tiny minority of parents

one estimate (source: "听雨丛谈"): 60-70% of rural female population practiced foot-binding, overwhelming majority ("鄉間不裹足者十居三四")

another estimate (source: "绥远通志稿"): 98-99% of local general female population practiced foot-binding, almost universal ("平民妇女不缠足者,殆百无一二焉")
 
How do you figure? The resentment went nowhere and accomplished nothing particularly challenging to the regime for two and a half centuries. Meanwhile, the imposition of the queue was a remarkably effective litmus test for forcing powerful symbolic gestures of submission from Chinese communities and hopelessly isolating diehards.

The examination and military systems were necessary, but that reflects in no way on whether or not the queue was an effective political tool.

And it really was.
Jesuits of the time noted that the Chinese fought and died more valiantly for their hair than for the empire; even if you didn't have the massive rebellions until the mid-nineteenth century, the queue was both a strong recruiting tool for rebels and utterly unreliable as a sign of submission. Tobie Meyer-Fong wrote about the symbols used to identify loyalists and rebels during the Taiping Rebellion, and found rebels had little problem shaving their foreheads to purposefully deceive the authorities into thinking they were loyal as they undermined them.

The real sources of loyalty to the dynasty when it was most tested was its commitment to Chinese literary culture; the examination systems, cultural projects like those of the Kangxi emperor, dynastic recognition of loyal martyrs, and so on won over the scholar-landowners, who were instrumental in crushing the peasant rebellions.
 
one estimate (source: "听雨丛谈"): 60-70% of rural female population practiced foot-binding, overwhelming majority ("鄉間不裹足者十居三四")

another estimate (source: "绥远通志稿"): 98-99% of local general female population practiced foot-binding, almost universal ("平民妇女不缠足者,殆百无一二焉")

Wikipedia says the practice was increasing from the Song dynasty onwards. NPR suggests that "40 percent to 50 percent of Chinese women had bound feet in the 19th century. For the upper classes, the figure was almost 100 percent."

Of course that number itself is more than I had thought....

For your sources - are the parts you're referencing online? I'm not turning up any percentages in my searches.
 

jahenders

Banned
From any political (if not ethical) viewpoint the Manchus did get it right. People with queues mattered far more than people with bound foot, queues were much more visible, etc.

It probably also shouldn't be lost that the queue order was focused on men demonstrating their subordination, while foot binding was focused on women. Naturally, the Manchu were FAR more worried about insubordinate men than insubordinate women. They could, of course, blame the men of a family if the women practiced food binding, but that's less direct and universal than killing/capturing virtually any male without the queue.
 
It probably also shouldn't be lost that the queue order was focused on men demonstrating their subordination, while foot binding was focused on women. Naturally, the Manchu were FAR more worried about insubordinate men than insubordinate women. They could, of course, blame the men of a family if the women practiced food binding, but that's less direct and universal than killing/capturing virtually any male without the queue.

That's what I was getting at with "People with queues mattered far more than people with bound foot"
 
Jesuits of the time noted that the Chinese fought and died more valiantly for their hair than for the empire; even if you didn't have the massive rebellions until the mid-nineteenth century, the queue was both a strong recruiting tool for rebels and utterly unreliable as a sign of submission. Tobie Meyer-Fong wrote about the symbols used to identify loyalists and rebels during the Taiping Rebellion, and found rebels had little problem shaving their foreheads to purposefully deceive the authorities into thinking they were loyal as they undermined them.

The real sources of loyalty to the dynasty when it was most tested was its commitment to Chinese literary culture; the examination systems, cultural projects like those of the Kangxi emperor, dynastic recognition of loyal martyrs, and so on won over the scholar-landowners, who were instrumental in crushing the peasant rebellions.

Filial piety in the form of the queue trumps loyalty to an abstract ideal of the Celestial Empire every time.
 
The Emperor giving you the degree you need to hold public office and enforcing orthodoxy decisively trumped outward displays like the queue in terms of enforcing loyalty during the Hair Rebellion.
 
The Emperor giving you the degree you need to hold public office and enforcing orthodoxy decisively trumped outward displays like the queue in terms of enforcing loyalty during the Hair Rebellion.

Is anyone really arguing that promotion of orthodox Confucian meritocracy was less effective or essential than enforcing a hairstyle? You're arguing the point alone so far as I can see. Unintentional straw man kind of situation.

If you want to argue with everyone else, the points under dispute were whether the queue had any practical utility, and whether it's full implementation could be exchanged for a successful foot-binding ban.
 
What I'm saying is that with other mechanisms for promoting legitimacy and enforcing loyalty in place, the hair order was at best redundant and at worst self-destructive on the dynasty's part. Getting rid of it, even if they don't enforce footbinding bans in replacement, would strengthen their position among their Chinese subjects. Intermittent rebellion weakened the empire, and I think it's doubtful rebels could mobilize in such strength without such a visible violation of Chinese morality.
 
What I'm saying is that with other mechanisms for promoting legitimacy and enforcing loyalty in place, the hair order was at best redundant and at worst self-destructive on the dynasty's part. Getting rid of it, even if they don't enforce footbinding bans in replacement, would strengthen their position among their Chinese subjects. Intermittent rebellion weakened the empire, and I think it's doubtful rebels could mobilize in such strength without such a visible violation of Chinese morality.

Which is fine so far as it goes, but I find it hard to believe that removing the hair issue would have prevented the revolt of the Feudatories, or the Taiping rebellion. And for the frequent minor risings in the dynasty's second half, I think it's hard to argue that issues like soil exhaustion matched with taxation would have produced the same results regardless of fashion choices.
 
Thing is, climatical issues that foment rebellion were worse than ever in the 1640s, but you didn't see resistance to the death and mass butchery of Han until the queue order; that pent up frustration and violence existed beforehand, but the imposition of foreign hair styles gave it a direction and focal point on the barbarian invaders. Even if it doesn't suffice to prevent individual revolts and rebellions, it makes it harder for them to build up steam; they get put down sooner and with less damage to the regime if rebel leaders can't make it a chance to assert Han manhood through hair.
 
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