Page:Village life in Korea (1911).djvu/189

Rh years yet, as she was not old enough to be married anyway, whereupon he answered by saying: "No Korean girl can be unmarried at twenty years of age and be considered a pure girl." It should be remembered in this connection that the way of counting age in this country differs from that in the United States, so that a person called twenty here is often no more than seventeen or eighteen. Every child is counted a year old when born, and the following New Year's day it is counted two years old. So that a child born on the last day of the year will be counted two years old the following day, when, in fact, it is not twenty-four hours old. This method of counting must always be taken into consideration when reckoning the age of Koreans. We are therefore safe in laying down the age of eighteen as the dead line beyond which no Korean maiden should venture to pass.

As a matter of fact, the betrothal takes place in early childhood, and I am told that friends sometimes make the engagement, under certain conditions, even before the children are born. From what has already been said it will be seen that there is little room left for love and courtship in the matter of marriage, where everything is arranged by those who have the care of the children. A man has a son that he thinks should be married, and so he begins to look out for some one with a girl that must be married. In the first place, it is wholly a business matter, just as much as that which meets the farmer when he needs another mule on his farm. It is more often, however, that the boy's mother will be more anxious to have him married