Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/470

 and all his property confiscated. Such was the law up to the year 1895, but at that time the punishment of wives and daughters for the man's fault was done away, and a great forward step was thus taken in judicial ethics. Since that time only the principal offender himself has suffered punishment.

In the matter of divorce the great inequality between the sexes becomes plainly manifest. On no pretext whatever can a woman obtain a legal separation from her husband. The only thing she can do is to run away to her father's house or to that of some relative. In this case the husband has no redress unless he can disprove her charges against him. In such case he can demand not her person, but only the cost of the marriage ceremony. This proving is not done by legal process, but is a matter between the parties concerned and their relatives. The law will not force a woman to go back to her husband's home. Thus we see that divorce in its main feature, namely, the getting rid of a bad husband, is possible to any Korean woman, but there is no legal document which dissolves the marriage tie.

If a man wants to get rid of his wife, the reason will probably be either that she is barren, or that she has committed adultery, or that she is an inveterate gossip, or that she has insulted him, or that she is indolent, or that she does not attend properly to the sacrifices or that she is a thief. If the woman thus divorced is a lady, she has absolutely no redress, whether the accusation is just or not. If she is a common woman, she can appeal to the Mayor of Seoul or to her local magistrate and can have her husband punished for driving her away without sufficient cause if she can prove that such is the case. If a woman is divorced, or if she runs away from her husband, all the children remain in his care. She cannot take any of them with her unless by his permission. If she clandestinely does so, he can force her to give the child up.

Divorce is very uncommon among the upper class. The wife and mistress of the house is by no means a mere chattel, as in Turkey or Persia. She has certain well-defined rights