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74 each may have a wife — one or more, as he likes — but this does not make him in any true sense the head of a family so long as his father is living. At the father's death the headship of the family is handed down to the eldest son, and all the younger brothers look to him for direction and often for support just as they did to the father. The girls are married at an early age, and are no longer considered as members of the family. The property is held by the eldest son, and used not only for himself but for the family. Concubinage is very common, and must be reckoned in the family life of Korea. The reasons for it are many, first of which is the method of securing wives, which will he discussed in another chapter. In the second place, the very low estimate placed upon woman tends to strengthen this bane of family life.

Slavery must be taken into account in discussing the family life of the well-to-do, since it is a part of the social custom and law of the land. There are no male slaves, though the condition of many men is little better than slavery. The women are real slaves, being bought and sold the same as pigs and cows, and are recognized as the property of their master. In former times this was true of men also, but more than three hundred years ago, at the time of the great Japanese invasion, so many of the men were killed that a decree went forth that there were to be no more male slaves; but the condition of woman slavery remained, and is here till the present. The slave women are in some sense the freest women in the country, since they are not bound by the laws of custom which