What does Year of the Horse tell the unborn?

By Maija Rhee Devine

As a girl born in the Year of the Sheep, I felt lucky. It was one of the best animal signs a girl could hope for. Why? They made good wives. The characteristics associated with the sign are: tender, polite, filial, clever, and kind-hearted. Who wouldn’t love such girls and daughters-in-law?

Except maybe clever. Clever was not a good sign for girls, the wives-to-be. A common saying among people of the Korean War (1950-53) era and through even the 1960s, especially in rural areas, was, “Girls who can count beyond 10 will swallow their husbands.” That is, send the men to early graves.

While I wallowed in my luck, my best friend through high school years was cursed by the Horse sign.

Qualities associated with that animal are: ingenious, seeks limelight, energetic, bright, talks too much, gallops, and is stubborn.

Ouch, ouch, ouch! What groom and mother-in-law would want such an animal? My friend developed a set of permanently knit eyebrows and down-turned corners at her mouth.

I worried about her constantly. Her mother, matchmakers, and she did enormous amounts of hand-wringing well into her old-maidenhood before a groom and his family accepted her.

All this causes me to worry again. Not about her, but the ones now in wombs waiting to be born in this Year of the Horse, and not over their marriage prospects, either.

A recent study on sex ratio at birth in 2013 still shows worrisome 107 boys to 100 girls (Source: CIA World Factbook, Dec. 6, 2013), higher than the norm the society is trying to achieve — 105 over 100.

Additionally, the graphs and charts on this topic revealed that in the years of the horse in 1978, 1990, and 2002, the sex ratio at birth turned dramatically masculine — 110, 116.8, and 109.4 over 100 girls, respectively (Source: Policy Research Paper 4373, The World Bank, October 2007).

The study suggested that the sex- selective pregnancy terminations against females became more acute in the years of the horse because of the expectant families’ desire not to produce girls believed to possess characteristics unappealing as future wives.

Between 2005 and 2013, the sex ratio at birth shows a modest decline from 107.8 to 107, certainly not as dramatically as from 1994 to 2005, which registered a decrease of sex-selective pregnancy terminations by 58 percent.

I am surprised at the slow pace of progress Korea seems to be making toward achieving a more gender-free society, considering the sophistication from high levels of education, exposure to the outside world, and re-assessment of the validity of 600-plus-year-old Joseon Kingdom patriarchal values by the young generation of childbearing- age women and their spouses.

Because the birth ratio was as high as 116.8 to 100 in 1990, one of the Horse Years with the highest female fetus abortion rates, and the sex- selective pregnancy terminations that occurred from late 1970s through now, Korea imports young women from Vietnam and the Philippines to serve as brides. Where will Korea seek young women to start new families in 2034?

How many additional female fetuses will be aborted this year, not solely on the basis of male preference, but also on account of their animal sign? This leaves me wringing my hands again.

The writer, who resides in Missouri, is the author of “The Voices of Heaven,” (2013) about a family surviving the Korean War. She can be reached at www.MaijaRheeDevine.com.