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Getting married in Korea : of gender, morality, and modernity

Author

Kendall, Laurel.

Title

Getting married in Korea : of gender, morality, and modernity / Laurel Kendall.

Format

Book

Published

Berkeley : University of California Press, ©1996.

Description

xiii, 259 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Notes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 231-248) and index.

Contents

• 1. Why Study Weddings? A Confessional Introduction
• 2. A Wedding in Righteous Town
• 3. A Rite of Modernization and Its Postmodern Discontents
• 4. Transformations: The Construction of Courtship in Twentieth-Century Korea
• 5. Requesting Marriage
• 6. Ceremonious Goods
• 7. Betrothal Gifts and "Bothersome Custom."

Summary

This work explores what it means to be modern and what it means to be Korean in a culture where courtship and marriage are often the crucible in which notions of gender and class are cast and recast. Touching on a number of important issues--identity, romantic love, women's work, marriage negotiations, and wedding ceremonies--Laurel Kendall gives us a new appreciation for how Koreans have adapted this pivotal social practice to the astounding changes of the past century. Kendall attended her first Korean wedding in 1970, soon after she arrived in the country with the Peace Corps. Years later, as a seasoned anthropologist, she began interviewing couples, matchmakers, and proprietors of wedding halls. She consulted etiquette handbooks and women's magazines and analyzed cartoons, photographs, and weddings themselves. The result is an engaging account of how marriage matches are made, how families proceed through the rites, how they finance ceremonies and elaborate exchanges of ritual goods, and how these practices are integral to the construction of adult identities and notions of ideal women and men.--From publisher description.

Subject headings

Marriage customs and rites--Korea. Wedding etiquette--Korea. Sex role--Korea. Gender identity--Korea. Social classes--Korea. Ceremonial exchange--Korea.

Kinsey subjects

Marriage customs--Korea.

Subject headings

Korea--Social conditions.