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

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kendall, Laurel.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Marriage customs and rites--Korea.

Marriage customs and rites.

Wedding etiquette--Korea.

Wedding etiquette.

Sex role--Korea.

Sex role.

Gender identity--Korea.

Gender identity.

Social classes--Korea.

Social classes.

Ceremonial exchange--Korea.

Ceremonial exchange.

Korea--Social conditions.

Korea.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 259 p. ) ill. ;

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, Calif. ; London : University of California Press, c1996.

Language Note:

English

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.

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."

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

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

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-520-91678-6

0-585-04766-9

OCLC:

1414457322