KOREAN MARRIAGE CUSTOMS
Paik-kui Mi was not without a certain degree of life on that Sunday.
A _yang-ban’s_ steward impressed boats for the gratuitous carriage
of tiles to Seoul, which caused a little feeble excitement among the
junkmen. There was a sick person, and a _mu-tang_ or female exorcist
was engaged during the whole day in the attempt to expel the malevolent
dæmon which was afflicting him, the process being accompanied by the
constant beating of a drum and the loud vibrating sound of large
cymbals. Lastly, there was a marriage, and this deserves more than a
passing notice, marriage, burial, and exorcism, with their ceremonials,
being the outstanding features of Korea.[18]
The Korean is nobody until he is married. He is a being of no account,
a “hobbledehoy.” The wedding-day is the entrance on respectability and
manhood, and marks a leap upwards on the social ladder. The youth,
with long abundant hair divided in the middle and plaited at the back,
wearing a short, girdled coat, and looking as if he had no place in
the world though he may be quite grown up, and who is always taken
by strangers for a girl, is transformed by the formal reciprocal
salutations which constitute the binding ceremony of marriage. He has
received the tonsure, and the long hair surrounding it is drawn into
the now celebrated “topknot.” He is invested with the _mangan_, a
crownless skullcap or fillet of horsehair, without which, thereafter,
he is never seen. He wears a black hat and a long full coat, and
his awkward gait is metamorphosed into a dignified swing. His boy
companions have become his inferiors. His name takes the equivalent of
“Mr.” after it; honorifics must be used in addressing him--in short,
from being a “nobody” he becomes a “somebody.”
A girl by marrying fulfils her “manifest destiny.” Spinsterhood
in Korea is relegated to the Buddhist nunneries, where it has no
reputation for sanctity. Absolutely secluded in the inner court of
her father’s house from the age of seven, a girl passes about the
age of seventeen to the absolute seclusion of the inner rooms of her
father-in-law’s house. The old ties are broken, and her husband’s home
is thenceforth her prison. It is “custom.” It is only to our thinking
that the custom covers a felt hardship. It is needless to add that the
young couples do not choose each other. The marriage is arranged by the
fathers, and is consented to as a matter of course. A man gains the
reputation of being a neglectful father who allows his son to reach
the age of twenty unmarried. Seventeen or eighteen is the usual age at
which a man marries. A girl may go through the marriage ceremony as a
mere child if her parents think an “eligible” may slip through their
fingers, but she is not obliged to assume the duties of wifehood till
she is sixteen. On the other hand, boys of ten and twelve years of age
are constantly married when their parents for any reason wish to see
the affair settled and a desirable connection presents itself, and the
yellow hats and pink and blue coats and attempted dignity of these boy
bridegrooms are among the sights of the cities.
A go-between is generally employed for the preliminary arrangements.
No money is given to the bride’s father by the bridegroom, nor does
the daughter receive a dowry, but she is supplied with a large
_trousseau_, which is packed in handsome marriage chests with brass
clamps and decorations. There is no betrothal ceremony, and after the
arrangement has been made the marriage may be delayed for weeks or
even months. When it is thought desirable that it should take place,
but not until the evening before, the bridegroom’s father sends a sort
of marriage-contract to the bride’s father, who receives it without
replying, and two pieces of silk are sent to the bride, out of which
her outer garments must be made for the marriage day.
A number of men carrying gay silk lanterns bear this present to the
bride, and on the way are met by a party of men from her father’s
house bearing torches, and a fight ensues, which is often more than a
make-believe one, for serious blows are exchanged, and on both sides
some are hurt. Death has occasionally been known to follow on the
wounds received. If the bridegroom’s party is worsted in the _melée_
it is a sign that he will have bad luck; if the bride’s, that she
will have misfortunes. The night before the marriage the parents of
the bride and groom sacrifice in their respective houses before the
ancestral tablets, and acquaint the ancestors with the event which is
to occur on the morrow.
The auspicious day having been decided on by the sorcerer, about an
hour before noon, the bridegroom on horseback, and in Court dress,
leaves his father’s house, and on that occasion only a plebeian can
pass a _yang-ban_ on the road without dismounting. Two men walk before
him, one carrying a white umbrella, and the other, who is dressed in
red cloth, a goose, which is the emblem of conjugal fidelity. He is
also attended by several men carrying unlighted red silk lanterns, by
various servants, by a married brother, if he has one, or by his father
if he has not. On reaching his destination he takes the goose from the
hands of the man in red, goes into the house, and lays it upon a table.
_Apropos_ of this emblem it must be observed that conjugal fidelity is
only required from the wife, and is a feminine virtue only.
Two women who are hired to officiate on such occasions lead the
bride on to the veranda, or an estrade, and place her opposite the
bridegroom, who stands facing her, but at some little distance from
her. The wedding guests fill the courtyard. This is the man’s first
view of his future wife. She may have seen him through a chink in the
lattice or a hole in the wall. A queer object she is to our thinking.
Her face is covered with white powder, patched with spots of red,
and her eyelids are glued together by an adhesive compound. At the
instigation of her attendants she bows twice to her lord, and he bows
four times to her. It is this public reciprocal “salutation” which
alone constitutes a valid marriage. After it, if he repudiates her, he
cannot take another wife. The permanence of the marriage tie is fully
recognized in Korea, though a man can form as many illicit connections
as he chooses. A cup of wine is then given to the bridegroom, who
drinks a little, after which it is handed to the bride, who merely
tastes it.
Afterwards within the house a table with a dainty dinner is set before
the husband, who eats sparingly. The bride retires to the women’s
rooms, and the groom rejoices with his friends in the men’s apartments.
There is no simultaneous banquet. Each guest on arriving is supplied
with a table of food. Such a table, in the case of people of means,
costs from five to six _yen_ (from 10s. to 12s.), and a very cheap
wedding costs seventy-five _yen_, so that several daughters are a
misfortune.
During the afternoon the husband returns to his father’s house, and
after a time the bride, bundled up in a mass of wedding clothes, and
with her eyelids still sealed, attended by the two women mentioned
before, some hired girls, and men with lanterns, goes thither also,
in a rigidly closed chair, in the gay decorations of which red
predominates. There she is received by her father and mother-in-law,
to whom she bows four times, remaining speechless. She is then carried
back to the house of her own parents, her eyelids are unsealed, and
the powder is washed from her face. At five her husband arrives, but
returns to his father’s house on the following morning, this process
of going and returning being repeated for three days, after which the
bride is carried in a plain chair to her future home, under the roof
of her parents-in-law, where she is allotted a room or rooms in the
seclusion of the women’s apartments.
The name bestowed on her by her parents soon after her birth is
dropped, and she is known thereafter only as “the wife of so and so,”
or “the mother of so and so.” Her husband addresses her by the word
_yabu_, signifying “Look here,” which is significant of her relations
to him.
Silence is regarded as a wife’s first duty. During the whole of the
marriage day the bride must be as mute as a statue. If she says a
word or even makes a sign she becomes an object of ridicule, and her
silence must remain unbroken even in her own room, though her husband
may attempt to break it by taunts, jeers, or coaxing, for the female
servants are all on the _qui vive_ for such a breach of etiquette as
speech, hanging about the doors and chinks to catch up and gossip even
a single utterance, which would cause her to lose caste for ever in her
circle. This custom of silence is observed with the greatest rigidity
in the higher classes. It may be a week or several months before the
husband knows the sound of his wife’s voice, and even after that
for a length of time she only opens her mouth for necessary speech.
With the father-in-law the law of silence is even more rigid. The
daughter-in-law often passes years without raising her eyes to his, or
addressing a word to him.
The wife has recognized duties to her husband, but he has few, if any,
to her. It is correct for a man to treat his wife with external marks
of respect, but he would be an object for scorn and ridicule if he
showed her affection or treated her as a companion. Among the upper
classes a bridegroom, after passing three or four days with his wife,
leaves her for a considerable time to show his indifference. To act
otherwise would be “bad form.” My impression is that the community
of interests and occupations which poverty gives, and the embargo
which it lays on other connections, in Korea as in some other Oriental
countries, produces happier marriages among the lower orders than
among the higher. Korean women have always borne the yoke. They accept
inferiority as their natural lot; they do not look for affection in
marriage, and probably the idea of breaking custom never occurs to
them. Usually they submit quietly to the rule of the _belle-mère_, and
those who are insubordinate and provoke scenes of anger and scandal
are reduced to order by a severe beating, when they are women of the
people. But in the noble class custom forbids a husband to strike
his wife, and as his only remedy is a divorce, and remarriage is
difficult, he usually resigns himself to his fate. But if, in addition
to tormenting him and destroying the peace of his house, the wife is
unfaithful, he can take her to a mandarin, who, after giving her a
severe beating, may bestow her on a satellite.
The seclusion of girls in the parental home is carried on after
marriage, and in the case of women of the upper and middle classes is
as complete as is possible. They never go out by daylight except in
completely closed chairs. At night, attended by a woman and a servant
with a lantern, and with a mantle over her head, a wife may stir
abroad and visit her female friends, but never without her husband’s
permission, who requires, or may require, proof that the visit has
been actually paid. Shopping is done by servants, or goods are
brought to the veranda, the vendors discreetly retiring. Time, which
among the leisured classes hangs heavily on the hands, is spent in
spasmodic cooking, sewing, embroidering, reading very light literature
in _En-mun_, and in the never-failing resources of gossip and the
interminable discussion of babies. If a wife is very dull indeed,
she can, with her husband’s permission, send for actors, or rather
posturing reciters, to the compound, and look at them through the
chinks of the bamboo blinds. Through these also many Korean ladies have
seen the splendors of the _Kur-dong_.
When the Korean wife becomes a mother her position is improved. Girls,
as being unable to support their parents in old age or to perform the
ancestral rites, are not prized as boys are, yet they are neither
superfluous nor unwelcome as in some Eastern countries. The birth of a
girl is not made an occasion for rejoicing, but that of the firstborn
son is, and after the name has been bestowed on him, the mother is
known as “the mother of so and so.” The first step alone of the first
boy is an occasion for family jubilation. Korean babies have no
cradles, and are put to sleep by being tapped lightly on the stomach.
[Illustration: A KOREAN LADY.]
FOOTNOTES:
[18] The notes on marriage customs which follow were given me by
English-speaking Koreans and were taken down at the time. They apply
chiefly to the middle class.