Korean women's crucial role in society

By John Alderman Linton

Korea and its culture are in truth very different from what can be seen on the surface.

Historically speaking, my Celtic ancestors in Scotland lived wild and savage lives. But the Korean yangban, or nobility, practiced calligraphy, partook of the finer things, and cultivated an appreciation for culture of all kinds.

Perhaps that's why Korean culture keeps offering new discoveries. It's been more than 120 years since my ancestors first came to Korea, but remarkably, we're still learning new things today.

Not long after I finished up my medical residency in the United States and returned to Korea in 1991, I had a consultation with a young Caucasian woman who identified herself as a missionary to Korea.

That struck me as rather odd, since by that point most missionaries to Korea had already gone back home. In fact, the Korean Christian church was starting to send its own missionaries abroad. Today, South Korea alone sends nearly as many missionaries as the entire United States.

While talking to the young woman, I mentioned that Jonah's escape from the belly of the whale had to have been a miracle since it was scientifically impossible to survive for three days without any oxygen in a fish's belly. But the young woman said she didn't believe the Bible literally because some parts of it were fictional.

When I asked her if she believed that Mary had conceived while still a virgin, she said that couldn't have happened. She added that the story of Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the grave after three days was impossible and in fact ridiculous. She figured the disciples were so eager to see Jesus after his death that they started seeing visions. There was no actual resurrection, the young woman told me.

Her account was completely at odds with what I'd always heard in church. I couldn't help wondering what kind of mission work this young woman meant to do when she obviously rejected the message of the Bible.

As I listened doubtfully, she told me she'd come to Korea to help liberate its women. I warned her that when it comes to Korean women, there's more than meets the eye and started to share what I'd observed in my own experience.

I spent my early years in the city of Suncheon, in Jeolla Province. Because most Korean families worked on the farm back then, they tended to have a lot of children. Even my mother planned to have 12 children, though she ended up only having six. I was the youngest of the bunch.

When I went over to my friends' houses as a kid, I very quickly came to realize that the most important woman in those sprawling households, which often had multiple generations living under the same roof, was the eldest son's wife.

When it came time for my friends' eldest brothers to tie the knot, their families would agonize over which woman to accept into the family. It was a difficult decision that was only reached through a long and complicated process.

On the wedding day, even the poorest families would treat their guests to a bountiful feast of beef and pork. I remember eating my fill on those days.

But following the wedding, the eldest son's wife had to put up with the kind of persecution that Jesus faced in the Bible. She was held to blame for everything from a bad harvest to sickness among the old folks. Whatever went wrong, she was at fault.

And it got worse. She had to go to bed later than her mother-in-law and rise earlier than her. Throughout the day, she was saddled with housework of all kinds, along with endless nagging from her mother-in-law.

But after the eldest son's wife gave birth to a son or two, her position in the family began to change. She grew emotionally distant from her husband and shifted her focus to her sons.

As the family matriarch grew older, I observed how the eldest son's wife gradually took her place, managing the household and handling family matters both great and small. She eventually became the very heart of the family. She learned how to handle rude or improper behavior from her husband's younger brothers, calling the wife aside instead of calling the offender out to maintain family decorum.

"Do you know what the younger sons' wives call the eldest son's wife? They call her hyeongnim," I told the young woman who saw herself as a missionary. I explained that hyeongnim is not one of the typical feminine forms of address that women use around each other, but a masculine form of address that a man would use to address an older man.

I told her how, after the age of 60, men occupy a much weaker position in the family. Basically, their only role after that point is to attend weddings and funerals in the village as the ceremonial head of the family. Indeed, the majority of all decision-making in the family, including on financial matters, is made by the mother of the family.

It's true that many women have suffered from discrimination as a result of Korea's Confucian legacy. But taking a closer look at Korean families, we can find another side to that story ― the central role that women have played in Korean society.

"Korean women have already been liberated," I told the young woman as our conversation wound down. "What I wish you'd do is learn how Korean women handle things and share those teachings with people back in the United States."

John Alderman Linton, an American-Korean whose Korean name is Ihn Yo-han, is a director at Yonsei University Severance Hospital International Health Care Center.