Introduction
Young-Key Kim-Renaud
This book, Creative Women of Korea: The Fifteenth Through the Twentieth Centuries, was conceived with the specific aim of filling a certain gap in available Western-language materials on Korean womenâs contributions to the humanities. It introduces to the English-speaking world aspects of important contributions by women in traditional and modern Korea, from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries. From the outset, three questions were posed:
(1) Have Korean women, especially those in the Confucian Korea of the ChosĹn dynasty (1392â1910), been passive recipients of the subservient status imposed by that society, or have they had their own agency?
(2) In what historical and social context did some of the most creative women achieve their artistic triumphs?
(3) What are the key characteristics of their creativity? Are there any shared traits in their creativity?
Creative Women of Korea consists of nine chapters that discuss literary and artistic works by women that may be considered Korean classics. Most of the women included in this book lived during the ChosĹn dynasty, with the exception of two moderns whose work presents contrasting reactions to past conventions in the wake of Koreaâs modernization. I excluded living artists, many of whom are among the top literary and artistic figures of contemporary Korea.
The names of most women artists in traditional Korea are unknown to us because their creative activities were not meant to be publicized beyond the world of women. A small number of womenâQueen Sohye, Sin Saimdang, HĹ NansĹrhĹn, Hwang Chini, and Lady HyegyĹng of ChosĹn-dynasty Korea, and Kim IryĹp and Hahn Moo-Sook of modern Koreaâhave achieved great fame. Their works occupy a public space, each by different circumstances.
All the women discussed in Creative Women of Korea are from the upper class (yangban), with the exception of Hwang Chini, a courtesan entertainer, or kisaeng, who, according to legend, was at least partially noble in origin. It is no coincidence that what literary and artistic works by women have survived are by noblewomen. They were the educated ones, with enough leisure and presence of mind to participate in creative endeavors, unlike lower-class women for whom education was thought useless as they would be too busy tending to daily chores. There may have been exceptions, but even if lowborn women did write and create, their productions were probably considered too unimportant for anyone to preserve whatever they left behind.
Propriety demanded that the literature and works of art by noblewomen not be publicized, even if these women, in their hearts, wished for their works to be discovered. In premodern times, therefore, among creative pieces by female authors and artists, anonymous works far exceed in number those whose creators are known. Womenâs work was meant to circulate among their own gender, although circumstances made some of their works known among the general public. So, the creative women discussed in this book may share similar backgrounds, but their individual works are extremely varied in their originality and provenance. Thus, while those works represent the range of Korean womenâs achievements, in no way is their presentation here meant as a characterization of Korean women in general.
Nevertheless, the force behind their creation is very much of one thread. Creative activity was the road to self-discovery. Each artist possessed a clear sense of self-confidence and an urge to express her creativity. Each wrote, painted, and made objects from a sincere and genuine desire to express deep emotions, trying to lead a life of harmony, good taste, and beauty emanating from within (mÇt), while guarding her personal creed, integrity, and dignity, in her own particular ways. These women occupied unmistakable spaces of their own in traditional Korea; they often challenge the view of Korean women of the past commonly held today.
How did a woman of traditional Korea feel about herself? Was she miserable about her wretched âlife of bondageâ in the service of men? Conventionally, a traditional Korean woman has been considered as powerless under the burdens and abuses inflicted upon her by the patriarchal norms of Confucian society. An âidealâ woman was one of noble birth, who remained cloistered within the inner quarters (anchâae). In fact, the higher her status, the more she was sequestered.1 The assumed inferior position of women in human relationships and the presumed paucity of womenâs works in pre-modern Korean literature and art would seem to attest to the verisimilitude of such preconceptions.2 Women had no room of their own in the sense of Virginia Woolf, the English writer, as they were ostensibly silenced into non-existence.3
The Neo-Confucian politico-moral system supposedly was adopted as the set of governing principles of the ChosĹn dynasty at its founding. And current scholarship informs us that, as the dynasty progressed, womenâespecially of the yangban classâgradually became less publicly visible.4 Under a dogmatic interpretation, the âproperâ place for women was narrowly defined in terms of the physical and abstract sphere they occupied. A wellborn woman belonged to the inner quarters behind the thick walls of her familyâs houseâand those of her husbandâs abode after marriage. In Confucian Korea, the world of a decent woman was private; the public sphere belonged to men only. An ideal woman was neither to be visible to, nor to communicate with, the opposite sex, with the exception of male servants, who were âless than normalâ human beings. She was modest, diligent, frugal, faithful, docile, patient, and, above all, discreet. A system of female doctors, chosen from the lower classes, was created because aristocratic women refused to see male doctors.5
Among the key characteristics of Korean civilization are rites, lineage structure, literature, and education. In a Confucian society, rites are of the utmost importance, because âcorrectâ acts are considered crucial for enhancing harmony among the members of society.6 In an ideal Confucian state, the moral conduct of the people was thought to contribute directly to the health of society and the vigor of the nation. Three cardinal human relationships (samgang) and five moral imperatives (oryun) were the inviolable creed, which regulated peopleâs behavior in minute detail. Samgang concerned the relationships between ruler and subject, father and son, and husband and wife. Oryun, reinforcing and clarifying samgang, prescribed righteousness between ruler and subject, affinity between father and son, separation of functions between husband and wife, proper order of birth between elder and younger brother, and fidelity between friends.7
To maintain proper human relationships, ritual and etiquette were mandated. Of the Four Rites (sarye)âadulthood, nuptials, funeral, and ancestor worship (or the remembrance ceremony)âthe institution of ancestor worship brought about the most profound change in Korean society. Ancestral worship categorized members of the descent group into a hierarchy. In the early ChosĹn dynasty, well before the seventeenth century, when Korea was completely Confucianized, women were equal participants in ancestral rites, but gradually the main line of the eldest sons came to assume the heaviest responsibility in ritual obligations. The system of primogeniture was thus solidified, and unequal inheritance customs ensued. Patriarchy was considered the most natural requirement for an orderly life. Womenâs participation in ritual gradually but surely came to be limited to the preparation of sacrificial foods and proper ceremonial garb for men.
On the surface, a womanâs status seemed to be determined uniquely by the men in her life. The âetiquette of Three Dependenciesâ (Samjong chi Ĺi) meant that a woman obeyed her parents as a child, her husband as a wife, and her son as a widow. With the wholesale Confucianization of society, women seemed to lose their identity completely. However, in contrast to most patrilineal systems, in Confucian Korea the old custom of women playing a pivotal role in determining the social status of their offspring persisted. It is well known that the issue of illegitimate or secondary consorts met with discrimination. Protest literature, such as the Hong Kiltong chĹn (The Tale of Hong Kiltong) by HĹ Kyun, attests to the unhappiness felt by victims of the system and their sympathizers.8
However, there has been substantial variation and complexity even in the matter of gender and class in traditional Korea, depending on the historical period, personal life cycles, and, finally, individual qualities and talents of the person in question. With the common belief of pubu ilchâe (âa couple is one bodyâ), even in the worst period for women, a woman received due respect from all who respected her husband. For the same reason, filial piety did not apply only to oneâs father, but to both parents. This is well reflected in linguistic protocol. Due to an elaborate honorific system in the Korean language, the choice of the appropriate forms of address and referent honorifics is the most overt representation of interpersonal relationships. A husband and a wife have not used equal speech levels to each other of late, but early twentieth-century novels indicate that, until quite recently, aristocratic couples used to address each other by equal-in-level polite forms. A mother may use a formal speech style to a grown son (or daughter), especially if he (or she, as is manifest in Lady HyegyĹngâs memoirs) attained high social status, but in no way would a son âtalk downâ to his own mother or elder sister, however high a position he or she may have reached.
Recent studies have shown that the social institutions affecting women in the gravest ways were fully implemented only by the seventeenth century.9 Even in the most unfavorable times for women, a noblewoman often exercised considerable power by virtue of her birth, station, and upbringing. Her ancestry bestowed privilege upon her. Married, she became an opposing but complementary half in the yin and yang whole, playing a key role in establishing the legitimacy of a noble lineage. In other words, although oneâs aristocratic lineage was through oneâs father, oneâs motherâs aristocratic origin was equally important in confirming oneâs nobility in the Korean tradition. At a certain stage of her life cycle, a woman would even become a lead manager of not only the inner quarters but of the entire household. Thus, Korean âwomen opened up arenas of freedom for themselves without directly challenging the ideal norms promulgated by the official ideology.â10
There is a clear parallel here to Dorothy Koâs portrayal of traditional Chinese women:
[I]f the assumptions of patriarchy were not being challenged outright in the seventeenth century, in practice they were being constantly mitigated. Although men still claimed legal rights over family property and fathers enjoyed authority over women and children, the housewife as de facto household manager, mother, and educator of children had ample opportunities to influence family affairs. In the context of everyday life, women were hardly outsiders to the family system.11
Indeed, stories abound about virtuous Asian women who lectured their corrupt (official) and undiscerning husbands. The quantity of known womenâs writings and artwork in Korea is minimal compared to menâs, as women were not supposed to be visible in the first place. However, a few works by identifiable women authors, and by countless anonymous others who are clearly women, allow us a glimpse of the world of women and an idea of their sensibility, intelligence, and dignity. In almost every work, there is a surprising sense of self-confidence or self-awareness on the part of the author or creator as an important and often daring and innovative participant in artistic life, even when some women may have been lamenting their destiny.
Women wrote mainly in hanâgĹl, the Korean alphabet invented in the mid-fifteenth century. Only men held public office, and official positions were filled through the civil-service examina...