Getting Married in Korea

Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity

Bibliographic Data

ID7518037
AuthorsMatsumoto Seiichi (corresponding author)
Year1997
Volume56
Issue2
Pages420-420
Publication date1997-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeREVIEW
Review ofGetting Married in Korea: Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity, Laurel Kendall, 1996
VenueAsian Folklore Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0385-2342
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1178739
OpenAlexW2019554335
LanguageEN

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 both working-class and middle-class couples, matchmakers, purveyors of dowry goods, 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. The book is also a reflection on what it means to write 'Korea' in a complex and ever changing social milieu

Modernity · Morality · Political science · Sociology · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Gender Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Law

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