Page:History of Corea, ancient and modern; with description of manners and customs, language and geography (1879).djvu/344

 316 COREAN SOCIAL CUSTOMS. and complete we know ; for one can learn it almost at a sitting. From the fax^s of the men we infer that Corean women are more beautiful than the Chinese, — ^though we have seen many very pretty Chinese faces. They are, from all accounts, very much more cleanly, both in house and person, than are the Chinese ; though no one, seeing the Coreans in Peking or in other parts of China, would infer so. The following is from the book already quoted, and is again dependent on China: — ^Anciently, there was no distinction or separation between man and woman. It was Foohi (2852 B.C.) originated the system of marriage, i.e., the departure of the woman to the house of one husband. The skin of the Li * (or Lan) bird was presented to form the marriage contract Then xilso was there a division into distinct families and*sumame& Match-makers were also then instituted ! The points to be desired in a husband and wife are thus illustrated : — In the time of Jin (Tsin), A.D. 265-419, there was a prime minister, Wang, who had several sons. Another minister. Si Jien, had a lovely daughter, whom he was anxious to see married in Wang's family. He sent one of his subordinate officials to make overtures to the prime minister. The sons heard with pleasure of the beautiful maiden, and each vied with the other in the magnificence and costliness of the robes in which he was to appear before the middle-man, that, when he returned, he might give a good report of the handsome person of so-and- so,-^^ach hoping to excel. But Sidsu, one of the sons, when he heard of the story, still kept the couch on which he had been reclining, — ^his body half naked."!* He listened to the story of the middle-man, as if he did not hear, — ^whUe he never ceased attention to the books which he had been studying. The middle-man returned, and praised the persons of all the sona; but especially praised the son who listened as if he heard not, Foohi who instituted clothing ; for men and women had only a pair of large oak leaves for covering before his time. t This is invariably the undress of Chinamen in summer.
 * Of the Phcenix tribe, and more beautifnl than any existing now. It was also