On the marriage-day, in the house of the groom, a platform is set up and richly adorned with decorative woven stuffs. Parents, friends, and acquaintances assemble in a crowd. The couple to be married—who may never have seen or spoken to each other—are brought in and take their places on the platform, face to face. There they remain for a few minutes. They salute each other with profound obeisance, but utter not a word. This constitutes the ceremony of marriage. Each then retires, on either side; the bride to the female, the groom to the male apartments, where feasting and amusement, after fashions in vogue in Chō-sen, take place. The expense of a wedding is considerable, and the bridegroom must be unstinting in his hospitality. Any failure in this particular may subject him to unpleasant practical jokes.
On her wedding-day, the young bride must preserve absolute silence, both on the marriage platform and in the nuptial chamber. Etiquette requires this at least among the nobility. Though [[248]]overwhelmed with questions and compliments, silence is her duty. She must rest mute and impassive as a statue. She seats herself in a corner clothed in all the robes she can bear upon her person. Her husband may disrobe her if he wishes, but she must take no part or hinder him. If she utters a word or makes a gesture, she is made the butt of the jokes and gossip of her husband’s house or neighborhood. The female servants of the house place themselves in a peeping position to listen or look through the windows, and are sure to publish what they see and hear amiss. Or this may be done to discover whether the husband is pleased with his wife, or how he behaves to her, as is the case in Japan. A bit of gossip—evidently a stock story—is the following from Dallet:
A newly married Corean groom spent a whole day among his male friends, in order to catch some words from his wife at their first interview, after their hours of separation. His spouse was informed of this, and perhaps resolved to be obstinate. Her husband, having vainly tried to make her speak, at last told her that on consulting the astrologers they had said that his wife was mute from birth. He now saw that such was the case, and was resolved not to keep for his wife a dumb woman. Now in a Corean wedding, it is quite possible that such an event may take place. One of the contracting parties may be deaf, mute, blind, or impotent. It matters not. The marriage exists. But the wife, stung by her husband’s words, broke out in an angry voice, “Alas, the horoscope drawn for my partner is still more true. The diviner announced that I should marry the son of a rat.” This, to a Corean, is a great insult, as it attaints father and son, and hence the husband and his father. The shouts of laughter from the eavesdropping female servants added to the discomfiture of the young husband, who had gained his point of making his bride use her tongue at a heavy expense, for long did his friends jeer at him for his bravado, and chaff him at catching a Tartar.
From the language, and from Japanese sources, we obtain some side-lights on the nuptial ceremony and married life. In Corean phrase hon-sang (the wedding and the funeral) are the two great events of life. Many are the terms relating to marriage, and the synonyms for conjugal union. “To take the hat,” “to clip the hair,” “to don the tuft,” “to sit on the mat,” are all in use among the gentlemen of the peninsula to denote the act or state of marriage. The hat and the hair play an important part in the transition from single to double blessedness. All who [[249]]wear their locks ta-rai, or in a tress behind, are youths and maidens. Those with the tuft or top-knot are married. At his wedding and during the first year, the bridegroom wears a cap, made of a yellow herb, which is supposed to grow only near Sunto. Other honeymoon caps are melon-shaped, and made of sable skin. After the chung-mai, or middle-man, has arranged the match, and the day is appointed for the han-sa, or wedding, the bride chooses two or three maiden friends as “bridesmaids.” If rich, the bride goes to her future husband’s house in a palanquin; if poor, she rides on horseback. Even the humblest maid uses a sort of cap or veil, with ornaments on the breast, back, and at the girdle. When she cannot buy, she borrows. The prominent symbolic figure at the wedding is a goose; which, in Corean eyes, is the emblem of conjugal fidelity. Sometimes this mok-an is of gilded wood, sometimes it is made out of a fish for eating, again it is a live bird brought in a cloth with the head visible. If in the house, as is usual, the couple ascend the piled mats or dais and the reciprocal prostrations, or acts of mutual consent, form the sacramental part of the ceremony, and constitute marriage. The bride bows four times to her father-in-law and twice to the groom. The groom then bows four times to the bride. Other symbolic emblems are the fantastic shapes of straw (otsuka) presented to bride and groom alike. Dried pheasant is also brought in and cut. A gourd-bottle of rice-wine, decorated or tied with red and blue thread, is handed by the bride to the groom. The bridesmaids standing beside the couple pour the liquid and pass for exchange the one little “cup of the wine of mutual joy,” several times filled and emptied.
Then begins the wedding-feast, when the guests drink and make merry. The important document certifying the fact of wedlock is called the hon-se-chi, and is signed by both parties. When the woman is unable to write, she makes “her mark” (siu-pon) by spreading out her hand and tracing with a pencil the exact profile of palm, wrist, and fingers. Sometimes the groom, in addition to his four prostrations, which are significant of fidelity to the bride, gives to his father-in-law a written oath of constancy to his daughter. Faithfulness is, however, a typical feminine, rather than masculine, virtue in the hermit nation. The pong-kang, a kind of wild canary bird, is held up to the wife as her model of conjugal fidelity. Another large bird, somewhat exceeding a duck in size, and called the ching-kiong, is said never to remate after [[250]]the death of its consort. Corean widows are expected to imitate this virtuous fowl. In some places may be seen the vermilion arch or monumental gateway erected to some widow of faithful memory who wedded but once. Married women wear two rings on the ring finger. Sixty years, or a cycle, completes the ideal length of marital life, and “a golden wedding” is then celebrated.
Among the most peculiar of women’s rights in Chō-sen is the curious custom forbidding any males in Seoul from being out after eight o’clock in the evening. When this Corean curfew sounds, all men must hie in-doors, while women are free to ramble abroad until one A.M. To transgress this law of pem-ya brings severe penalty upon the offender. In-doors, the violation of the privacy of the woman’s quarters is punishable by exile or severe flagellation.
The following story, from Dallet, further illustrates some phases of their marriage customs, and shows that, while polygamy is not allowed, concubinage is a recognized institution:
A noble wished to marry his own daughter and that of his deceased brother to eligible young men. Both maidens were of the same age. He wished to wed both well, but especially his own child. With this idea in view he had already refused some good offers. Finally he made a proposal to a family noted alike for pedigree and riches. After hesitating some time which of the maidens he should dispose of first, he finally decided upon his own child. Without having seen his future son-in-law, he pledged his word and agreed upon the night. Three days before the ceremony he learned from the diviners that the young man chosen was silly, exceedingly ugly, and very ignorant. What should he do? He could not retreat. He had given his word, and in such a case the law is inflexible. In his despair he resolved upon a plan to render abortive what he could not avert. On the day of the marriage, he appeared in the women’s apartments, and gave orders in the most imperative manner that his niece, and not his daughter, should don the marriage coiffure and the wedding-dress, and mount the nuptial platform. His stupefied daughter could not but acquiesce. The two cousins being of about the same height, the substitution was easy, and the ceremony proceeded according to the usual forms. The new bridegroom passed the afternoon in the men’s apartments, where he met his supposed father-in-law. What was the amazement of the old noble to find that far from being stupid and ugly, as depicted by the diviners, the young man [[251]]was good-looking, well-formed, intelligent, highly educated, and amiable in manners. Bitterly regretting the loss of so accomplished a son-in-law, he determined to repair the evil. He secretly ordered that, instead of his niece, his daughter should be introduced as the bride. He knew well that the young man would suspect nothing, for during the salutations the brides are always so muffled up with dresses and loaded with ornaments that it is impossible to distinguish their countenances.
All happened as the old man desired. During the two or three days which he passed with the new family, he congratulated himself upon obtaining so excellent a son-in-law. The latter, on his part, showed himself more and more charming, and so gained the heart of his supposed father-in-law that, in a burst of confidence, the latter revealed to him all that had happened. He told of the diviners’ reports concerning him, and the successive substitutions of niece for daughter and daughter for niece.
The young man was at first speechless, then, recovering his composure, said: “All right, and that is a very smart trick on your part. But it is clear that both the two young persons belong to me, and I claim them. Your niece is my lawful wife, since she has made to me the legal salute, and your daughter—introduced by yourself into my marriage-chamber—has become of right and law my concubine.” The crafty old man, caught in his own net, had nothing to answer. The two young women were conducted to the house of the new husband and master, and the old noble was jeered at both for his lack of address and his bad faith.