Habituated from infancy to such a yoke and regarding themselves as of an inferior race, most women submit to their lot with exemplary resignation. Having no idea of progress or of an infraction of established usage they bear all things. They become devoted and obedient wives, jealous of the reputation and well-being of their husbands. The woman who is legally espoused, whether widow or slave, enters into and shares the entire social estate of her husband. Even if she be not noble by birth she becomes so by marrying a noble. It is not proper for a widow to remarry.
The fashion of mourning, the proper time and place to shed tears, and express grief, according to regulations, are rigidly prescribed in an official treatise, or “Guide to Mourners,” published by the government. The corpse must be placed in a coffin of very thick wood, and preserved during many months in a special room prepared and ornamented for this purpose. It is proper to weep only in this death chamber, but this must be done three or four times daily. Before entering it the mourner must don a special suit of mourning clothes. At the new and full moon all the relatives are invited and expected to assist in the ceremonies. These practices continue more or less even after burial, and at intervals during several years. Often a noble will go out to weep at the tomb, passing days and nights in this position. Among the poor, who have not the means to provide a death chamber and expensive mourning, the coffin is kept outside their houses covered with mats until the time for its burial.
Though cremation is known in Corea, the most usual form of disposing of the dead is by burial. Children are wrapped up in the clothes and bedding in which they die and are thus buried. As all unmarried persons are reckoned as children their shroud and burial are the same. With the married the process is more costly, and more detailed and prolonged. The selection of a proper site for their tomb is a matter of profound solicitude, time, and money; for the geomancers must be consulted with a fee. The tombs of the poor consist only of a grave and a low mound of earth. With the richer class monuments are of stone, sometimes neat or even imposing, sometimes grotesque.
Mourning is of many degrees[degrees] and lengths, and is betokened by dress, abstinence from food and business, visits to the tomb, offerings, tablets, and many visible indications detailed even to absurdity. Pure or nearly pure white is the mourning color, as a contrast to red, the color of rejoicing. When noblemen don the peaked hat which covers the face as well as the head, they are as dead to the world, not to be spoken to, molested, or even arrested, if charged with crime. This Corean mourning hat proved the helmet of salvation to Christians and explains the safety of the French missionaries who lived so long in disguise under its shelter, unharmed in the country where the police were ever on their track. The Jesuits were not slow to see the wonderful protection promised for them, and availed themselves of it at once and always, both while entering the well-guarded frontier and while residing in the country.
Corean architecture is in a very primitive condition. The castles, fortifications, temples, monasteries, and public buildings cannot approach the magnificence of those of Japan or China. The dwellings are tiled or thatched houses, almost invariably one story high. In the smaller towns these are not arranged in regular streets but are scattered here and there. Even in the cities the streets are narrow and tortuous. In the rural parts the houses of the wealthy are surrounded by beautiful groves, with gardens circled by hedges or fences of rushes or split bamboo. The cities show a greater display of red-tiled roofs, as only the officials and nobles are allowed this honor. Shingles are not much used. The thatchings are rice or barley straw. A low wall of uncemented stone five or six feet high, surrounds the dwellings. The foundations are laid on stone set in the earth, and the floor of the humble is the ground itself. The people one grade above the poorest, cover the hard ground with sheets of oiled paper which serve as a carpet. For the better class a floor of wood is raised a foot or so above the earth.
Bed clothes are of silk, wadded cotton, thick paper, and furs. Cushions or bags of rice-chaff form the pillows of the rich. The poor man uses a smooth log of wood or slightly raised portion of the floor to rest his head upon. In most families of the middle class, the “kang” forms the vaulted floor, bed, and stove. It is as if we should make a bedstead of bricks and put foot-stoves under it. The floor is bricked over or built of stone, over flues which run from the fireplace at one end of the house to the chimney at the other. The fire which does the cooking is thus used to warm those sitting or sleeping in the room beyond.
Three rooms are the rule in an average house, and these are for cooking, eating, and sleeping. In the kitchen the most notable articles are the large earthen jars for holding rice, barley or water. Each of them is big enough to hold a man easily. The second room, containing the “kang,” is the sleeping apartment, and the next is the best room or parlor. Little furniture is the rule. Coreans, like the Japanese, sit not cross-legged but on their heels. Among the well-to-do, dog skins cover the floor for a carpet, or tiger skins serve as rugs. Matting is common.
COREAN BOAT.—Native Drawing.
The meals are served on the floor on small low tables, usually one for each guest, but sometimes one for a couple. The best table service is of porcelain and the ordinary sort of earthenware with white metal or copper utensils. The tablecloths are of fine glazed paper and resemble oiled silk. No knives or forks are used; but instead chopsticks and what is more common than in China or Japan, spoons are used at every meal. The walls range in quality of decoration from plain mud to colored plaster and paper. Pictures are not known. The windows are square and latticed without or within, covered with tough oiled paper, and moving in grooves. The doors are of wood, paper, or plaited bamboo. Glass was till recently a nearly unknown luxury in Corea.