Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/122

108 Our village girl plays about the house and yard with the other children of the village until she is seven or eight years old, at which time she must be separated from the boys and men, taking her place in the woman's department of the house, where she is not to be seen by men or boys unless they be her near relatives. This cannot be strictly applied in the case of the middle and lower classes, where the girls must be seen as they go about the work which they must do. If there be a baby in the family, from the time the little girl can carry it she will spend most of her time with the baby tied on her back. When she goes out to play with other children, the baby is on her back; if she goes out to work, baby also goes, not to work, of course, but to ride while sister works. In some of the schools that have been started by missionaries for girls, the girls come to school with babies strapped on their backs.

The life of our village girl is not an easy one; to say the very least of it, she has a hard time. Not only must she take the place of a servant in the family, but she is imposed upon by her brothers and the other boys in the community with whom she comes in touch while she is a little tot. She is just simply a girl, and that is sufficient reason to place her away down in the estimation of all the boys in the village, her brothers included.

The parents do not consider her as a permanent part of the family, but only as a burden which is to be carried till such a time as she can be disposed of to the best advantage to themselves. This period is not very long, since in most cases the girl is betrothed