Quaint Korea

by Louise Jordan Miln

The customs preliminary to marriage are in Korea very like those same customs in China and in Japan. The father of a marriageable daughter or a marriageable son looks about for a suitable parti. If a husband is desired, then the girl’s father usually interviews a number of eligible youths, widowers, or married men until he finds what he wants. Then a middle-man is sent to discover whether an offer of marriage would be favourably received, and on what terms. If the bridegroom selected is unmarried he has, unless he is an orphan and the head of his family, no voice whatever in the matter, the only people really consulted being the respective fathers. If a father is on the look-out for a daughter-in-law, he sends his wife to interview and report upon the girl whom he has been told is suitable in age, dower, etc. Now comes in another of the few advantages of being a woman in Korea. She has very largely the selection of her own daughters-in-law, and if the daughter-in-law proves unsatisfactory she has only herself to blame. When the middle-man has ascertained that the proposal of marriage will be acceptable, the father who has negotiated the proceedings writes an elaborate letter to the other father, and makes a formal proposal for the hand of his son or daughter. But this letter is not binding upon the writer until he receives one in return accepting the proposal.

After that there is no drawing back, and should the betrothed man die before the marriage day the girl is regarded as a widow, and must remain unmarried all her life, or else marry an inferior and with disgrace. The man, on the other hand—should she die—is entirely free to marry, and at once.

When a lucky day has been selected for the wedding, the bridegroom sends to the bride presents in the Japanese fashion. Female clothing, bits of stuff, and sweets are the most important items among these presents. When they have been sent and received, the marriage ceremony has been half performed. Then the bridegroom is allowed to knot up his hair in manly fashion, but not until the day of marriage is he allowed to assume the garb of a man—be dressed as a man. A Korean bachelor of seventy is regarded as a child, treated as a child, and dressed as a child.

A prospective bridegroom pays visits of respect not to the relations of his bride, but to the kinsfolk of his own father. The kinsfolk of his mother do not count; indeed, a Korean wife is supposed to have no kindred but the kindred of her husband. The bridegroom’s father gives a great feast upon the night of the day on which the presents are sent. The feast lasts all night, and the quantity of food eaten, and the quantity of wine drunk, would sound almost incredible to European ears.

Korea is the country of bachelors. There are two reasons for this. The majority of the people are very poor and cannot afford the expense of daughters-in-law. Then, too, polygamy is so extensively practised among the rich that the supply of girls in the marriage market is never equal to the demand, and the average Korean would far rather see his daughter become the second, or the seventh, or the eighth wife, or concubine of a rich or powerful man, than the one wife of a labourer or low-class man. Marriage usually takes place three days after the presents are sent. These three days are very busy ones to the Korean bride, for out of one of the pieces of stuff sent her by the bridegroom, she must herself, and without assistance, fashion the elaborate robe which he assumes on the marriage night, and which is his first garment made after adult fashion. Thus the three days before marriage are spent by a Korean girl in performing her first duty as a wife. And the sending of the garment signifies that she, with the assistance of whatever wives he may afterwards marry, will, so long as they both live, make all the clothing required by him, his children, and his women.

When the marriage day arrives the lucky hour is chosen, and the bridegroom departs for the house of the bride. The bridegroom’s procession is as long and as splendid as his purse, or the purse of his father, can possibly permit. Everyone in that procession rides on horseback, and in single file. First comes a servant-man on a horse richly caparisoned; this servant carries a life-sized image of a wild goose. It is covered by a red scarf, and the servant must hold it with both hands—a circumstance which makes his horseback riding interesting, if not perilous. After him comes the bridegroom, splendidly arrayed, and followed by a groom and all his other servants. After them rides the bridegroom’s father, and he, too, is followed by all the servants he possesses or has been able to borrow. Relatives and friends in great quantity of persons and great quality of garments bring up the splendid rear.

In a marriage procession, or at a marriage, the poorest and lowliest man in Korea is allowed to wear robes and hats as rich as those ordinarily worn by the highest dignitary in the land, if he can manage to get them, and of the same distinctive style and shape.

When the girl’s house is reached, the servant who has carried the goose dismounts, the others remain on horseback. He goes into the house and lays the goose upon a bowl of rice that is standing in a convenient place. Then, without speaking, he leaves the house. The bridegroom’s father dismounts next, then the bridegroom, then all the others. Before entering the house they take off their boots and their hats, and their outer robes. The bride’s father now comes out of his house, bids them welcome, and leads them in. He is immediately followed by the bridegroom, and then by the bridegroom’s father and the others. They all sit solemnly down, and then ensues a scene not to be beaten for noise, no, not even in all Asia, which, I assure you, is saying a good deal.

The bridegroom has been accompanied, as far as practicable, by all the youths or men who are, or were, his fellow-students, or who belonged to the same literary degree as himself. These seize upon him with shrieking, and laughter, and singing, carrying him off to some distant part of the house or compound, and refuse, under any circumstances, to give him up, or to allow the marriage to proceed. The girl’s father, after some time, offers them a present of money to depart, and leave the chief actor in the proposed function free to play his part. After a good deal of haggling, and when the bribe has reached as high a point as the rollickers think it probably will, they accept the money and depart with it, to spend it in a day and a night of roystering and banqueting.

A feast elaborate, and to European notions tedious, is then offered to the bridegroom, his father and their attendants. After the feast the bridegroom’s father and all the servants depart. The bride’s father leads the bridegroom to the room in which the ancestral tablets of the family are enshrined; for ancestral worship is as universal and as sincere in Korea as in China. Before these tablets the prospective husband must pay homage long and earnest.