Owing to the fact that the country at large is so lacking in the shops and stores so common in other countries, and that, instead, fairs on set days are so numerous in the towns and villages, the guild of peddlers and hucksters is very large and influential. The class includes probably 200,000 able-bodied adult persons, who in the various provinces move freely among the people, and are thus useful to the government as spies, detectives, messengers, and, in time of need, soldiers. It was from this class that the Corean battalions which figured prominently in the affair of December 4–6, 1887, were recruited. [[244]]
CHAPTER XXVIII.
SOCIAL LIFE.—WOMAN AND THE FAMILY.
According to the opinions of the French missionaries, who were familiar with the social life of the people, a Corean woman has no moral existence. She is an instrument of pleasure or of labor; but never man’s companion or equal. She has no name. In childhood she receives indeed a surname by which she is known in the family, and by near friends, but at the age of puberty, none but her father and mother employ this appellative. To all others she is “the sister” of such a one, or “the daughter” of so-and-so. After her marriage her name is buried. She is absolutely nameless. Her own parents allude to her by employing the name of the district or ward in which she has married. Her parents-in-law speak of her by the name of the place in which she lived before marriage, as women rarely marry in the same village with their husbands. When she bears children, she is “the mother” of so-and-so. When a woman appears for trial before a magistrate, in order to save time and trouble, she receives a special name for the time being. The women below the middle class work very hard. Farm labor is done chiefly by them. Manure is applied by the women, rarely by the men. The women carry lunch to the laborers in the field, eating what is left for their share. In going to market, the women carry the heavier load. In their toilet, the women use rouge, white powders, and hair oil. They shave the eyebrows to a narrow line—that is, to a perfectly clean arch, with nothing straggling. They have luxuriant hair, and, in addition, use immense switches to fill out large coiffures.
In the higher classes of society, etiquette demands that the children of the two sexes be separated after the age of eight or ten years. After that time the boys dwell entirely in the men’s apartments, to study and even to eat and drink. The girls remain secluded in the women’s quarters. The boys are taught that it is a shameful thing even to set foot in the female part of the house. [[245]]The girls are told that it is disgraceful even to be seen by males, so that gradually they seek to hide themselves whenever any of the male sex appear. These customs, continued from childhood to old age, result in destroying the family life. A Corean of good taste only occasionally holds conversation with his wife, whom he regards as being far beneath him. He rarely consults her on anything serious, and though living under the same roof, one may say that husband and wife are widely separated. The female apartments among the higher classes resemble, in most respects, the zenanas of India. The men chat, smoke, and enjoy themselves in the outer rooms, and the women receive their parents and friends in the interior apartments. The same custom, based upon the same prejudice, hinders the common people in their moments of leisure from remaining in their own houses. The men seek the society of their male neighbors, and the women, on their part, unite together for local gossip. In the higher classes, when a young woman has arrived at marriageable age, none even of her own relatives, except those nearest of kin, is allowed to see or speak to her. Those who are excepted from this rule must address her with the most ceremonious reserve. After their marriage, the women are inaccessible. They are nearly always confined to their apartments, nor can they even look out in the streets without permission of their lords. So strict is this rule that fathers have on occasions killed their daughters, husbands their wives, and wives have committed suicide when strangers have touched them even with their fingers. The common romances or novels of the country expatiate on the merits of many a Corean Lucretia. In some cases, however, this exaggerated modesty produces the very results it is intended to avoid. If a bold villain or too eager paramour should succeed in penetrating secretly the apartments of a noble lady, she dare not utter a cry, nor oppose the least resistance which might attract attention; for then, whether guilty or not, she would be dishonored forever by the simple fact that a man had entered her chamber. Every Corean husband is a Cæsar in this respect. If, however, the affair remains a secret, her reputation is saved.
There is, however, another side. Though counting for nothing in society, and nearly so in their family, they are surrounded by a certain sort of exterior respect. They are always addressed in the formulas of honorific language. The men always step aside in the street to allow a woman to pass, even though she be of the [[246]]poorer classes. The apartments of females are inviolable even to the minions of the law. A noble who takes refuge in his wife’s room may not be seized. Only in cases of rebellion is he dragged forth, for in that case his family are reckoned as accomplices in his guilt. In other crimes the accused must in some way be enticed outside, where he may be legally arrested. When a peddler visits the house to show his wares, he waits until the doors of the women’s apartments are shut. This done, his goods are examined in the outer apartments, which are open to all. When a man wishes to mend, or go up on his roof, he first notifies his neighbors, in order that they may shut their doors and windows, lest he risk the horrible suspicion of peeping at the women. As the Coreans do not see a “man in the moon,” but only a rabbit pounding drugs, or a lady banished there for a certain fault, according as they are most familiar with Sanskrit or the Chinese story, the females are not afraid of this luminary, nor are the men jealous of her, the moon being female in their ideas of gender.
Marriage in Chō-sen is a thing with which a woman has little or nothing to do. The father of the young man communicates, either by call or letter, with the father of the girl whom he wishes his son to marry. This is often done without consulting the tastes or character of either, and usually through a middle-man or go-between. The fathers settle the time of the wedding after due discussion of the contract. A favorable day is appointed by the astrologers, and the arrangements are perfected. Under this aspect marriage seems an affair of small importance, but in reality it is marriage only that gives one any civil rank or influence in society. Every unmarried person is treated as a child. He may commit all sorts of foolishness without being held to account. His capers are not noticed, for he is not supposed to think or act seriously. Even the unmarried young men of twenty-five or thirty years of age can take no part in social reunions, or speak on affairs of importance, but must hold their tongues, be seen but not heard. Marriage is emancipation. Even if mated at twelve or thirteen years of age, the married are adults. The bride takes her place among the matrons, and the young man has a right to speak among the men and to wear a hat. The badge of single or of married life is the hair. Before marriage, the youth, who goes bareheaded, wears a simple tress, hanging down his back. The nuptial tie is, in reality, a knot of hair, for in wedlock the hair is bound up on the top of the head and is cultivated on all parts of [[247]]the scalp. According to old traditions, men ought never to clip a single hair; but in the capital the young gallants, in order to add to their personal attractions—with a dash of fashionable defiance—trim their locks so that their coiffure will not increase in size more than a hen’s egg. The women, on the contrary, not only preserve all their own hair, but procure false switches and braids to swell their coiffures to fashionable bulk. They make up two large tresses, which are rolled to the back and top of the head, and secured by a long pin of silver or copper. The common people roll their plaits around their heads, like a turban, and shave the front of the scalp. Young persons who insist on remaining single, or bachelors arrived at a certain or uncertain age, and who have not yet found a wife, secretly cut off their hair, or get it done by fraud, in order to pass for married folks and avoid being treated as children. Such a custom, however, is a gross violation of morals and etiquette. (See illustration, page 161.)
On the evening before the wedding, the young lady who is to be married invites one of her friends to change her virginal coiffure to that of a married woman.
The bridegroom-to-be also invites one of his acquaintance to “do up” his hair in manly style. The persons appointed to perform this service are chosen with great care, and as changing the hair marks the turning-point in life, the hair-dresser of this occasion is called the “hand of honor,” and answers to the bridesmaid and groomsman of other countries.