Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/449

 mostly indoors, and is familiarly seen only by the members of the household and the immediate relatives. This stage of her life is short, for she is married young and goes to take her place in the family of her husband. After that time she can be seen and conversed with, face to face, only by the following male members of the family: her husband, father, father-in-law, uncle, cousin, second cousin, etc., down to what the Koreans call the " eighth joint," which means about fourth cousin with us. It will at once appear, therefore, that a Korean woman is not entirely cut off from association with gentlemen, for, in a country where families are so large as in Korea, the number of men within these prescribed degrees may be anywhere from twenty to two hundred. But none of these will ever enter the inner part of the house except by invitation of the husband and in his company.

After a young bride arrives at the home of her husband, she will have free access to the private rooms of her new father and mother, even as their own daughters do, but neither her father nor any other man except her husband will ever step inside her private rooms, except under stress of sickness or other imperative cause. If any of her male relatives are to see her, it must be in the rooms of her father and mother. This does not apply to the young brothers of her husband, who may come into her room upon invitation up to the age of thirteen, after which they too are excluded. If there are two married brothers living at their father's house, neither of them can enter the private rooms of the other, though each can meet the wife of the other in the rooms of the parents. If, however, a young man marries and sets up an establishment of his own, he becomes the head of the house, and any of his male relatives, or hers, down to the " eighth joint," can enter the inner rooms upon invitation of the husband, but they will never do this unless there is some special reason for seeing the wife, since the husband will be sure to have a sarang, or general reception room, where he meets all his male friends.