Korea & Her Neighbours/Chapter IX

PAIK-KUI MI was not without a certain degree of life on that Sunday. A yang-ban' s steward impressed boats for the gratuitous carriage of tiles to Seoul, which caused a little fee- ble excitement among the junkmen. There was a sick person, and a mutang or female exorcist was engaged during the whole day in the attempt to expel the malevolent daemon which was afflicting him, the process being accompanied by the constant beating of a drum and the loud vibrating sound of large cym- bals. Lastly, there was a marriage, and this deserves more than a passing notice, marriage, burial, and exorcism, with their ceremonials, being the outstanding features of Korea. (1.)

The Korean is nobody until he is married. He is a being of no account, a “hobbledehoy.” The wedding-day is the entrance on respectability and manhood, and marks a leap up- wards on the social ladder. The youth, with long abundant hair divided in the middle and plaited at the back, wearing a short, girdled coat, and looking as if he had no place in the world though he may be quite grown up, and who is always taken by strangers for a girl, is transformed by the formal re- ciprocal salutations which constitute the binding ceremony of marriage. He has received the tonsure, and the long hair sur- rounding it is drawn into the now celebrated “topknot.” He is invested with the mangan, a crownless skullcap or fillet of horsehair, without which, thereafter, he is never seen. He wears a black hat and a long full coat, and his awkward gait is metamorphosed into a dignified swing. His boy companions have become his inferiors. His name takes the equivalent of “ Mr.” after it; honorifics must be used in addressing him — in short, from being a “nobody” he becomes a “somebody.”

A girl by marrying fulfils her “manifest destiny.” Spins- terhood in Korea is relegated to the Buddhist nunneries, where it has no reputation for sanctity. Absolutely secluded in the inner court of her father's house from the age of seven, a girl passes about the age of seventeen to the absolute seclusion of the inner rooms of her father-in-law's house. The old ties are broken, and her husband's home is thenceforth her prison. It is “custom.” It is only to our thinking that the custom covers a felt hardship. It is needless to add that the young couples do not choose each other. The marriage is arranged by the fathers, and is consented to as a matter of course. A man gains the reputation of being a neglectful father who allows his son to reach the age of twenty unmarried. Seven- teen or eighteen is the usual age at which a man marries. A girl may go through the marriage ceremony as a mere child if her parents think an “eligible” may slip through their fingers, but she is not obliged to assume the duties of wifehood till she is sixteen. On the other hand, boys of ten and twelve years of age are constantly married when their parents for any reason wish to see the affair settled and a desirable connection pre- sents itself, and the yellow hats and pink and blue coats and attempted dignity of these boy bridegrooms are among the sights of the cities.

A go-between is generally employed for the preliminary ar- rangements. No money is given to the bride's father by the bridegroom, nor does the daughter receive a dowry, but she is supplied with a large trousseau, which is packed in handsome marriage chests with brass clamps and decorations. There is no betrothal ceremony, and after the arrangement has been made the marriage may be delayed for weeks or even months.

When it is thought desirable that it should take place, but not until the evening before, the bridegroom's father sends a sort of marriage-contract to the bride's father, who receives it with- out replying, and two pieces of silk are sent to the bride, out of which her outer garments must be made for the marriage day.

A number of men carrying gay silk lanterns bear this pres- ent to the bride, and on the way are met by a party of men from her father's house bearing torches, and a fight ensues, which is often more than a make-believe one, for serious blows are exchanged, and on both sides some are hurt. Death has occasionally been known to follow on the wounds received. If the bridegroom's party is worsted in the melee it is a sign that he will have bad luck; if the bride's, that she will have misfortunes. The night before the marriage the parents of the bride and groom sacrifice in their respective houses before the ancestral tablets, and acquaint the ancestors with the event which is to occur on the morrow.

The auspicious day having been decided on by the sorcerer, about an hour before noon, the bridegroom on horseback, and in Court dress, leaves his father's house, and on that occasion only a plebeian can pass a yang-ban on the road without dis- mounting. Two men walk before him, one carrying a white umbrella, and the other, who is dressed in red cloth, a goose, which is the emblem of conjugal fidelity. He is also attended by several men carrying unlighted red silk lanterns, by various servants, by a married brother, if he has one, or by his father if he has not. On reaching his destination he takes the goose from the hands of the man in red, goes into the house, and lays it upon a table. Apropos of this emblem it must be ob- served that conjugal fidelity is only required from the wife, and is a feminine virtue only.

Two women who are hired to officiate on such occasions lead the bride on to the veranda, or an estrade, and place her opposite the bridegroom, who stands facing her, but at some little distance from her. The wedding guests fill the court- yard. This is the man's first view of his future wife. She may have seen him through a chink in the lattice or a hole in the wall. A queer object she is to our thinking. Her face is covered with white powder, patched with spots of red, and her eyelids are glued together by an adhesive compound. At the instigation of her attendants she bows twice to her lord, and he bows four times to her. It is this public reciprocal “salu- tation” which alone constitutes a valid marriage. After it, if he repudiates her, he cannot take another wife. The perma- nence of the marriage tie is fully recognized in Korea, though a man can form as many illicit connections as he chooses. A cup of wine is then given to the bridegroom, who drinks a little, after which it is handed to the bride, who merely tastes it.

Afterwards within the house a table with a dainty dinner is set before the husband, who eats sparingly. The bride retires to the women's rooms, and the groom rejoices with his friends in the men's apartments. There is no simultaneous banquet. Each guest on arriving is supplied with a table of food. Such a table, in the case of people of means, costs from five to six yen (from 10s. to 12s.), and a very cheap wedding costs seventy-five yen, so that several daughters are a misfortune.

During the afternoon the husband returns to his father's house, and after a time the bride, bundled up in a mass of wedding clothes, and with her eyelids still sealed, attended by the two women mentioned before, some hired girls, and men with lanterns, goes thither also, in a rigidly closed chair, in the gay decorations of which red predominates. There she is received by her father and mother-in-law, to whom she bows four times, remaining speechless. She is then carried back to the house of her own parents, her eyelids are unsealed, and the powder is washed from her face. At five her husband ar- rives, but returns to his father's house on the following morn- ing, this process of going and returning being repeated for three days, after which the bride is carried in a plain chair to her future home, under the roof of her parents-in-law, where she is allotted a room or rooms in the seclusion of the women's apartments.

The name bestowed on her by her parents soon after her birth is dropped, and she is known thereafter only as “the wife of so and so,” or “the mother of so and so.” Her hus- band addresses her by the word yabu, signifying “Look here,” which is significant of her relations to him.

Silence is regarded as a wife's first duty. During the whole of the marriage day the bride must be as mute as a statue. If she says a word or even makes a sign she becomes an object of ridicule, and her silence must remain unbroken even in her own room, though her husband may attempt to break it by taunts, jeers, or coaxing, for the female servants are all on the qui vive for such a breach of etiquette as speech, hanging about the doors and chinks to catch up and gossip even a single utterance, which would cause her to lose caste for ever in her circle. This custom of silence is observed with the greatest rigidity in the higher classes. It may be a week or several months before the husband knows the sound of his wife's voice, and even after that for a length of time she only opens her mouth for necessary speech. With the father-in-law the law of silence is even more rigid. The daughter-in-law often passes years without raising her eyes to his, or addressing a word to him.

The wife has recognized duties to her husband, but he has few, if any, to her. It is correct for a man to treat his wife with external marks of respect, but he would be an object for scorn and ridicule if he showed her affection or treated her as a companion. Among the upper classes a bridegroom, after passing three or four days with his wife, leaves her for a con- siderable time to show his indifference. To act otherwise would be “bad form.” My impression is that the community of interests and occupations which poverty gives, and the embargo which it lays on other connections, in Korea as in some other Oriental countries, produces happier marriages among the lower orders than among the higher. Korean women have always borne the yoke. They accept inferiority as their natural lot ; they do not look for affection in marriage, and probably the idea of breaking custom never occurs to them. Usually they submit quietly to the rule of the belle-mère and those who are insubordinate and provoke scenes of anger and scandal are reduced to order by a severe beating, when they are women of the people. But in the noble class custom for- bids a husband to strike his wife, and as his only remedy is a divorce, and remarriage is difficult, he usually resigns himself to his fate. But if, in addition to tormenting him and de- stroying the peace of his house, the wife is unfaithful, he can take her to a mandarin, who, after giving her a severe beating, may bestow her on a satellite.

The seclusion of girls in the parental home is carried on after marriage, and in the case of women of the upper and middle classes is as complete as is possible. They never go out by daylight except in completely closed chairs. At night, attended by a woman and a servant with a lantern, and with a mantle over her head, a wife may stir abroad and visit her fe- male friends, but never without her husband's permission, who requires, or may require, proof that the visit has been actually paid. Shopping is done by servants, or goods are brought to the veranda, the vendors discreetly retiring. Time, which among the leisured classes hangs heavily on the hands, is spent in spasmodic cooking, sewing, embroidering, reading very light literature in En-mun, and in the never-failing resources of gossip and the interminable discussion of babies. If a wife is very dull indeed, she can, with her husband's permis- sion, send for actors, or rather posturing reciters, to the com- pound, and look at them through the chinks of the bamboo blinds. Through these also many Korean ladies have seen the splendors of the Kur-dong.

When the Korean wife becomes a mother her position is improved. Girls, as being unable to support their parents in old age or to perform the ancestral rites, are not prized as boys are, yet they are neither superfluous nor unwelcome as in some Eastern countries. The birth of a girl is not made an occa- sion for rejoicing, but that of the firstborn son is, and after the name has been bestowed on him, the mother is known as “the mother of so and so.” The first step alone of the first boy is an occasion for family jubilation. Korean babies have no cradles, and are put to sleep by being tapped lightly on the stomach.

(1.) The notes on marriage customs which follow were given me by Eng- lish-speaking Koreans and were taken down at the time. They apply chiefly to the middle class.