\ 2irr\. yVoYnevi v^d jvT ‘ -n i^orean OToman ^b. <©EorgE ^EbEr 3TonEfi! ®oman’£( jForetgn iHit(£!ionarp feoriftp iRttf)olhat episcopal Cijurcf) 36 JBromlidti Street, ^Boston, iHass. ^3>y PRICE TWO CENTS > THE KOREAN WOMAN /^NNE of Korea’s famous Ministers of State was talking with a gentleman one day and the conversation passed to the topic of woman. The Korean said: “American women are splendid characters, but it is a mystery to me why they bind their waists; Japanese women are very light hearted, but then they blacken their teeth; Chinese women have pretty faces, but think of their crippled feet!” “But how about Korean women?” asked his friend. “Korean women,” responded the minister, “are all right.” This, in a certain sense, is the prevailing view among many Korean men to-day, and it is but natural it should be so. Beneath the Korean’s deeply ingrained teeling that woman is essentially inferior and unreli- able, lies an undercurrent of regard for the woman of his race and respect for her real worth. 3 ra THE KOREAN WOMAN Historical records and investigations into present conditions unite in proving that woman has exercised in Korean national and private life a degree of influ- enee out of all proportion to her theoretical position in society. In past ages queens have reigned in their own right, and though it is repugnant to the Confucianist to do so, their memory is cherished and their wisdom has passed into proverb. In times of great national crises, women as well as men have played heroic parts in saving the nation and inflicting damage on the foe. A well-known example of the ability, tact and resourcefulness of Korean womanhood is found in the life and work of the late Empress Min. She was the trusted counsellor of the Emperor in matters of State, and no single minister or group of statesmen wielded a farther reaching influence in imperial affairs than this little Korean woman behind the screen. The same thing is true, also, down through the lower levels of political life. In pro- vincial and perfectural Yamuns the influ- ence of some favorite concubine of the official, or his chief secretary, has been a factor with which native life must reckon. As a rule this influence has been lawless, 4 THE KOREAN WOMAN oftentimes baleful, but never indefinite, weak or vacillating. In private life woman appears in flatter- ing contrast with her theoretical inferi- ority. In the house she is supreme. Her husband leaves the management of it to her, and she directs the servants, provides the supplies of food and clothes, trains the children, cares for the sick, and finds many ministries awaiting her powers. She de- votes herself to her house and her family. She never dissipates. She never goes to a ball, a reception or the theatre. She makes no social calls and attends no social functions. She belongs to no clubs, lodges or societies; has no interest in public movements, and never goes shopping. In fact, she never goes anywhere. The characteristic, respectable Korean woman never appears in public in any capacity. Her world is her husband’s household af- fairs, and when all goes well, her life is to a degree free from care. But should there come a time of testing, and disaster over- take the house, as a rule it is the woman who comes to the front, shows resource- fulness and keeps things from going to pieces. While often the husband falls supine like a jelly fish cast upon the shore THE KOREAN WOMAN by the tides of misfortune, the wife will turn to her needle and her washing sticks, and the rice is earned and the children clothed and the household held together. Many a man w'ho struts the streets of Seoul in immaculate white, is noth- ing more than an errand boy and drummer for the real head of the house whom the world never sees. Back of the influence and importance of Korean womanhood must lie a strong character and real worth. She is enter- prising, quick to learn, tactful, true and sympathetic. As a mother, she is devoted to her children; as a wife, loyal to her husband; as a daughter, obedient to her parents. She reaches the climax of her power as a mother-in-law, and her sway is as despotic as any absolute monarchy on earth. She attains the highest altitudes of her position in life as a grandmother, and the reverence paid her as such is beautiful to behold. The Korean woman’s world is strange and mysterious to those of us who have been educated amid the conditions of White life, and very hard to understand. There is another side to the picture, how- ever, which must be told to portray prop- erly the Korean woman. In spite of her 6 THE KOREAN WOMAN \ recognized worth and abilities, she is de- prived of all opportunity to improve her- self; robbed of all rights except such as it may please her male protectors to give her, and is the victim of cruel social dis- tinctions and disabilities. She is regarded by the world at large simply as an ad- denda to man, a part of his earthly im- pedimenta, very useful to him, — like the dishes in which his appetizing food is served. Her individuality is ignored alike by law, custom and ethics. Korean man- hood has never discovered that woman has a personality, so she is not given a name. She is tied up to a man from the cradle to the grave. For her the whole moral law is expressed in three precepts: “In childhood follow your father; in wifehood follow your husband; in widowhood fol- low your eldest son.” This companionship is restricted to physical planes. At school boys are taught that they can have no as- sociation with woman on intellectual planes. Therefore, she is not educated. There are no schools for girls in Korea ex- cept those maintained by Christians. Korean girls have never known what it is to go to school, to attend a concert, to visit an exhibition or a museum, or to go on a A 7 THE KOREAN WOMAN pleasure excursion ^vith boy and girl friends. Since she has been deprived of these advantages of training and develop- ment, some color has been given to the dogma of her inferiority. Man finds her the product and the victim of cir- cumstances which he has himself cre- ated. So he brands her as weak, and therefore unreliable, and throws about her the protection of the law of seclusion. At the age of eight years girls are withdrawn from outside view and strictly confined in the inner apartments of the house. This is the Korean girl’s school, and here she is trained for her destiny,* which is marriage. There are no maiden ladies in Korea. Every woman gets married about the time American girls go to the High School. She starts life at this tender age in the inti- macy of matrimony with a man she never saw till the day she was married. Then she goes to her husband’s family to live with people whom she does not know and whose attitude toward her will vary ac- cording to the social scale into which she has married. Among the better classes the bride is welcomed and finds herself in the midst of an admiring and expectant circle THE KOREAN WOMAN of grandmothers, aunts and servants. Among all classes there is little doubt that the marriage ceremonies and the en- trance of a bride into the family life, shed a warm glow of pleasure about the whole household. Among the lower classes there are serious aspects to marriage and these soon assert themselves. The new bride is there regarded as very raw material to be trained, and if need be, hammered into shape. The marriage of a son is often timed to fit in with the need for increased household help, so that the new bride is really an ingenious solution of the Korean servant girl question in many families. The joys and sorrows, the problems and emergencies of life come in their order but the Korean woman must meet them in her own strength and wisdom. None of her religious teachers have any message for her. Confucius and Gautamo regard her as a moral conundrum. Probably the fol- lowing quotation from one of the Ancients more nearly represents her char- acter as held by the men with whom she has to deal than anything else 1 can quote: “A clever man builds a city, A clever woman lays one low. 9 THE KOREAN WOMAN With all her qualilications that clever woman Is but an ill-omened bird. A woman with a long tongue Is a flight of steps leading to calamity, For disorder does not come from heaven But is brought about by woman. Among those who cannot be trained or taught Are women and eunuchs.” Our Lord Jesus Christ discovered woman to men. He is the only religious teacher who has a message of hope and promise for her. The few passages in the gospels which tell of his teachings and his deeds of kindness to women have wrought a revolution in the world thought which defies human language to describe. Korean women need the message that Christ has brought, and the workers of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society are thrice welcome in Korea — ^welcome be- cause they bring the one message Korean women have awaited for three thousand years; welcome because of their deeds of Christian kindliness, of unselfish and patient labor; and welcome because they are the concrete and undeniable products of Christ’s gospel to woman, and a promise of the coming womanhood of Korea. 70 THE KOREAH WOMAti Let me tell of but one of our Christian women and what the Christ message meant to her. It was during the India famine, and when our Korean Christians heard of the awful distress there, they were deeply moved. They were not rich, but they had enough to eat and they wished to share it with the starving ones in India. So collec- tions were taken in our churches, and money and various articles were contrib- uted. Women took the silver pins out of their hair and the wedding rings off their fingers and sent them to be turned into money. But in the country there was one poor woman, a widow, who earned her liv- ing as a field laborer in the rice swamps. She had no money to give, neither any jewels, for long ago her silver pins and wedding rings had been disposed of to keep the wolf from the door. But her heart had been deeply moved by the tale of distress from the great land in the south and she felt that she had to do something. All she had was her hair — long, raven black tresses which God had given her. These had a market value, so she cut them off, sold them to a switchmaker and brought the price to the missionary to be sent to the starving ones in India, II THE KOREAN WOMAN One day our great Christ stood and watched the rich casting their gifts into the Lwrd’s treasury. And he saw also a poor widow casting in her two mites. He noted it and said, “Of a truth this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: for they have given of their abundance, but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.” Many gifts went to India from crowned heads, great govern- ments, and wealthy individuals; but just as on that day in Jerusalem there came among the rich a poor widow with all her living as a gift to the Lord, so among the vast throng that hurrie