Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/338

 312 COBEAN SOCIAL CUSTOMS. Ordinarily, the father of young hopeful begins the preparations for marriage ; but the father of a girl may look out a husband for her at pleasure. Fathers and mothers are even, if possible, more absolute than in China. The father makes enquiries as to who, of all his acquaintances, possesses a daughter eligible in years, appearance, character, and position. Having ascertained, lie consults with his wife, who gets on her long robe, pulls it over her face, and starts for the house of the young lady. If the interview does not satisfy the old lady, the process is repeated. When a good match is met with, a mutual friend of the two parental parties is engaged to perform the task of sounding the girl's parents, who may stop all further advances at once ; or the father of the girl may, in his turn, visit the house of the aspirant, and have an unoflBcial interview with the young man, in the same manner as his daughter was visited before. When both parties are agreeable, formal negotiations are opened by the father of the young man writing a long red-paper letter to his friend; first giving his own name and address, then asking carefully about his friend's health, &c., and expressing the warmest wishes for his welfare ; and last of all, like some postscripts, he mentions that he has one, two, or three sons, as the case may be ; that number one is unmarried, and of marriageable age ; that after careful enquiry among his many friends, he has discovered that his friend has a marriageable daughter, &c., &a This letter is written in presence of the middle man, to whom it is handed for delivery to the girl's father. There is, however, no engage- ment on either side, and either may draw back, until the girl's father replies in an equally formal manner, accepting the proposal for his daughter, after which acceptation the young people are virtually married ; for, if before the final consummation of marriage the young man dies, the girl is a widow, and acts as such, never marrying except with disgrace. It is a queer custom, and a most unequal and unjust one ; for if the woman dies, the youth can marry when he chooses. The custom is borrowed from the Chinese, and is first cousin to Suttee. An auspicious day is discovered by horology, on which the