Living in South Korea as
a Young Woman (6):
The Topic of Marriage
By Gurumi
Published: June 7, 2016
Translated by Jamie Sung
Editor’s
note: To begin a new feminist discourse in 2016, Ilda is running a series on
“Living as a Young Woman in South Korea.” The series receives support from the
Korea Foundation for Women’s “Funding for Gender-Equal Society.”
Heterosexual couples at or past
the perfect age to get married
I,
a 31-year-old woman, entered a new relationship last year. It is the first
relationship of my 30s. My boyfriend and I met as friends in our 20s (he’s 3
years my senior) and have maintained our friendship for a long time. When we
told the common circle of friends we’ve had since our 20s that we started
dating, they playfully made fun of and congratulated us simultaneously. We
posted our pictures on social media; we met and hung out with each other’s
friends—things people usually do when they start dating.
Marriage
has always been more of a joke than reality for me all throughout my adulthood.
I had never thought I would or could marry and just always thought marriage had
nothing to do with me. Whenever marriage became a topic of conversation, I would
tell silly jokes like, “I was planning on getting married this morning but was
too busy to do it,” and the conversation would move on to some other topic. For
my boyfriend, who is bisexual but has dated members of his own sex for a long
time, marriage was far from becoming a reality as well.
However,
marriage stopped being a matter to joke about once we started dating. All of a
sudden, people around us started asking when we would get married. As I
pondered how to answer such questions, I started asking myself why these
questions suddenly started to matter to me. We are, whether we like it or not,
a heterosexual couple at or past the perfect age for marriage in the eyes of
society. We also started to discuss our future as we built more trust. It was clear
that marriage was one of the many choices we had.
 |
| I went with my boyfriend to a friend’s baby’s first birthday party. It was my first time to bring a date to such events. ©Gurumi |
Enrolling in a College Located
in Seoul to Get Away from Family
I
guess I have to introduce myself, if only briefly. I am one of the countless
women who grew up in a small rural town and went to college in Seoul in a
desperate attempt to get away from their family and small town community.
I
spent the first 20 years of my life in a home where my father routinely beat
and swore at my mother. During the lengthy course of making sense of and processing
such experiences, I naturally became a feminist. I chose an artsy major in a
college environment that was relatively liberal in many ways. After graduation,
I worked as an activist for a women’s rights organization. Hence, most of my co-workers
and friends are feminists, and many of them have vowed never to marry.
My
parents, whose married life is still unhappy even though the domestic violence
has stopped, generally leave me and my future alone. The physical distance I
have put between myself and my family has, as I had fiercely hoped 10 years ago,
greatly helped me sever the emotional attachments and take a more objective
approach to assessing myself. I probably owe it to the small amount of
financial freedom I have earned by working hard to pay my own way, from tuition
to living expenses.
I
am currently unemployed. I just started working on something I had put off for
a long time, so I’m barely making ends meet for now with the little bits of
money I make from doing something small here and there. I paid off my student
loans last year but accrued new debts this year. My biggest concern these days
is the rising rent in my neighborhood.
Mom’s wish after enduring years
of violence for the sake of her children
In
my mom’s words, I don’t seem to be living the normal life that everyone else is.
She says it breaks her heart that her unmarried daughter, after taking 8 years
to graduate from college, which she also started later than her peers, is
walking around in shabby clothes with neither makeup nor heels on, witnessing
terrible things such as rape and sexual harassment while working for “a company
with a long name” (a women’s rights organization) for a measly amount of money.
I used to feel resentment toward her for such “concern”, but over time, I have learned
to let it go.
 |
| Pyeongyang cold noodles are the best when you feel frustrated. ©Gurumi |
In
all honesty, it was the resources my family provided for me that enabled me to
get a private education outside of school and maintain a good GPA so I could go
to college in Seoul. Mom endeavored to provide a good education for her
children despite a tough financial situation. It must have been hard for my mom
to understand the daughter who was “more sensitive than everyone else and
pessimistic about everything” and neither friendly nor easy to deal with, but
she endured it all with a hope for a better future. She even gave up on divorce
out of concern for her children.
One
day, when she couldn’t bear it any longer, she went to see a local family
counselor, holding the small hands of her two little girls, one in each of her
hands. The counselor asked my mom, “How are you going to raise such young
children all by yourself? Why don’t you tough it out a little longer?” She also
told my mom a good time would come when the children are all grown up. Mom came
back home in tears. It was the late 1980s in Gyeongsang Province [statistically,
Gyeongsang Province has had the highest sex-ratio imbalance at birth, and its
men still spend the least time on household chores in Korea]. Such was the
time and place Mom lived in when she was my age. She is now in her 60s. I
understand her desire to live a “normal” life like everyone else.
Having
recently found out I’m dating someone, my mom has many questions for me, such
as, “So the guy you are dating, what does he do? What do his parents do? Can I
meet him?” I had a long conversation with her a month ago when she came to
Seoul to check on her ailing mother. Mom’s face brightened.
“It
is time for you to get married. I hope you do soon. Maybe you girls don’t want
to get married because all you’ve seen is how my marriage turned out, and my
heart aches just thinking about it. I hope you don’t just think too negatively
of marriage, because lots of people are happily married. And if you were to
marry, you should do it before Dad retires.” Uhm, my dad’s retiring next
February. Perhaps the only thing left for me to do for my mom “like everyone
else” is to get married.
The married life of some
feminists around me…
When
I started working for a woman’s rights organization, I was surprised to find
that more of the women than I thought were married. I had thought most
feminists would want to live an unmarried life. I couldn’t help but develop an
interest in their marriages. I wondered what kind of people those I trust have
chosen to marry and why. The partners I have met, namely their husbands, were
mostly good people, I think. They were at least good supporters of each other for
the time being.
Partnership
seems to be the biggest hope for marriage of not only feminists but also people
of my age. A partner one can share common interests and grow with, a peer and
supporter one can study or work in the same field as. On top of that, how hard
must it be for a woman with feminist ideals to meet a man who at least agrees
with her ideals! In that regard, the marriages of my fellow feminists seemed
ideal examples of partnership. However, such an emphasis on partnership is not
some recent, suddenly developed perspective on marriage.
 |
My friend who's got
married recently said that
one of the advantages of the marriage is that you
can take a walk
with your spouse late at night if you want. ©Gurumi
|
People
marry for many reasons. Some choose it for the experience of giving birth and raising
children, others for financial stability. Moreover, a lot more women than one
may think choose to marry because they want to become independent or escape
from their family. In Korea, one’s unmarried [未婚/mi-hon, “not yet married”] status marks one as immature, and perhaps marriage
can be a promising form of insurance for women even though it may not provide
100% coverage.
I know how much harder it is to convince and change
one’s family than to do so with anyone else. I have also suffered from feelings
of helplessness, alienation and guilt in relationships with my family.
Sometimes the attempt to run away from direct oppression and violence—including tangible and intangible discrimination
against women—just so we can survive
in a day-to-day existence leads us to make choices that are unrelated to our volition or ideals. I believe such choices also ought to be respected.
Nonetheless, marriage not only means separation
from but also extension of family. As I listened to my female friends share
stories of hardships and complaints arising from having to compromise with the
conventional rules pertaining to family holidays, in-laws or children, I felt
angry inside while nodding my head on the outside. They suffered strenuous domestic
labor over family holidays, were pressured to have unwanted babies, had to
produce excuses about this constantly for two sets of parents. They had to work
late hours at the workplace and at the same time prepare food for their
in-laws’ jesa [Korean ancestral rites
which require a certain set of labor-intensive food to be provided as offerings
to the deceased spirits], yet were chastised if they ever produced store-bought
food.
These women had to unexpectedly learn how to curb
their desires as childrearing expenses increased, and household chore
distribution for double-income couples is a relentless, never-ending battle
between the two spouses. While the thought of maybe giving marriage a try occurred
to me at times, as I witnessed some of the brightest and strongest women I know
being forced to serve the unreasonable duties imposed on daughters-in-law,
mothers, daughters and wives, I could not help but wonder just what the proper market
prices for the advantages and disadvantages of marriage are.
No longer
able to dream new dreams?
Last summer, I took a trip to the United States on
my severance package. Rainbow-colored fireworks exploded into the night sky on
the day same-sex marriage became legalized. I saw a documentary on queer
culture at a park. In the first-world country where loud applause and screams erupted
each time one of its cast members was introduced, I thought of my friends back
home in Korea. The right to marry is still a goal far from being obtained by the
same-sex couples in Korea.
My boyfriend is a man who identifies as bisexual,
but all of his past lovers were men. Reaction from his friends to the news of
our relationship has varied from “Let’s see how long this one lasts” to “How does
it feel to have sex with a woman?” (What an honor that my body can represent
that of all women!) to “Just get married ASAP, will ya?”
Some of his friends believe he has crossed “the
river of no return,” kind of like ‘your life as a homosexual is over the moment
you have sex with a woman,’ ‘you will get married and have children,’ ‘will I
be an uncle,’ ‘when will the first birthday party for your child be.’ Ok, it’s
all good. When even a cab driver we’ve never met before asks when we will get
married, saying that much to a friend who’s suddenly dating a woman can be let
slide. Though I am tired of the wide array of prejudices against bisexuals, it’s
not hard for me to understand how those comments came about. At any rate,
bisexuals are seen as having closer access to—although the notion of inaccessibility by anyone
itself is wrong to begin with—the
right to marry when they date a member of the opposite sex.
 |
Me and my boyfriend on
my birthday last year ©Gurumi
|
However, for me, someone who has lived life as a
heterosexual woman for the past 30+ years, marriage is not a right to fight
for. Actually, choosing not to marry is more like it. When I reached this point in my thought
process, it occurred to me that the way I, perhaps too unquestionably, accepted
the question of marriage as a subject that merits concrete consideration may be
problematic.
There was a time I identified as one who would
never marry. I have dreamed of living harmoniously with all my like-minded
friends and peers. I have imagined a less capitalistic, more feminist and
anti-discriminatory community of which members would cohabit peacefully, and
shared those imaginations freely. I have felt bitter and betrayed for a while when
peers who used to share my dreams got married at an early age and so did the older
feminists who taught me about the existence of feminism.
Hence, I reconsider the words of my boyfriends’
friends. The reason I feel bitter about marriage is my feelings of guilt over my
dwindling efforts to create that community. If I still had the will to form a
community where everyone recognized one another’s internal conflicts as her own
and fought to eradicate them, or if I belonged to one, would I still be thinking
about marriage in one way or the other?
However, some fantasies are not allowed for
everyone. The career breaks of women who are in sole charge of giving birth and
raising children, increasingly systematic and escalating discrimination against
temporary workers, statistics telling us that most female workers are temps—the burden of it all falls entirely on the
individuals. We grow tired as we expand the excessive effort asked of us. “Too
busy just making ends meet” is not just a Korean hyperbole but a reality now.
As we get accustomed to giving up and giving in, dreaming new dreams has become
work that we can no longer be bothered with.
I am
nervous
My biggest anxiety is, in contrast to my dim hope, very
palpable: it is penury—the penury
of a senior whose health is failing. A senior who leaves behind: used boxes she
collected, a tiny room she called home and a letter she wrote on her deathbed, as
she ends her own life. My anxiety is about the kinds of things that are
reported on television news. I feel like I’m waiting for my turn as I watch my
anxiety grow every day up close and personal.
It would be disastrous if my health were to fail me
now. Time flies. I’m no longer a twentysomething. Twenty, thirty years in the future,
is there hope for another lover to love me? An internalized inferiority complex
and decreased self-esteem are whispering, “What use would I be when I run out
of money, health and my charms?” I am nervous.
But I’m only 31 years old. I hesitated on the word “only”,
but it’s not wrong to say so. Why am I already drawing on anxiety from a
distant future? In my 20s, I prayed I would turn 30 quickly. I vaguely assumed
I would be wiser, richer and more stable. Yet, I’m still just as nervous even
past the age of 30. At times, I’ve hung on the wishful thought that marriage might
provide a turning point in my anxiety-filled life, but I know it doesn’t
guarantee anything but a legally designated partner. It is only natural that
the prospect of married life is as opaque as my future.
 |
| Let us tackle life with gusto. ©Gurumi |
Our conversations start with the talk of marriage and end with the discussion of methods that would concretely extinguish our anxiety. We both admitted marriage is unnecessary for us right now and decided to discuss it again after a while, when the time calls for it.
We are considering adding immigration to our bucket
list. The question of whether we should leave this country soon is only turning
into a firm belief that we should as time goes by. Since a myriad of
preparations are needed for immigration, the sooner we start, the easier it
will be to act on our plan exactly when we want. But I keep hesitating.
Clearly, there are still many things that I don’t want to give up just yet.
I wish I could successfully jump through the
countless hurdles of the bleak reality and grow the crazy, hot, passionate love
of ours, but it’s not possible to commit to it head first. As many, including
my past self, feel, each aspect of life seems to have its own difficulties.
Amidst such confusion, I decide to focus on the relationship with my lover
first. Anxiety remains, but for now, we walk together.
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