KOREAN MARRIAGE CUSTOM
Traditional Korean marriage is an affair between two families involved. Like other cultures in the world, Korean traditional weddings are not only beautiful, but special in many ways. In the traditional marriage, one of the decisive factors in an engagement is called Kung-hab. Based on the art of prophecy, Kung-hab was conducted to predict the fortune and the future of a marriage. In consideration of Kung-hab, information about the birth year of the two candidates is needed to tell the future of the marriage. Although this practice has been highly influential in the Korean traditional marriage, the younger generation today tend to neglect such superstition. Traditionally, when there was a good match through Kung-hab, an engagement is followed. The prospective bridegroom sends silk and the necessary materials for the bride to make her wedding gown. The engagement ceremony is usually performed at the brides house. The bridegroom gives the engagement ring with other gifts. Once the engagement ceremony is over, a wedding day is chosen by a fortune teller and immediately reported to the ancestors. Then on the wedding day, the bridegroom in traditional wedding dress, wedding hat, and wedding belt leaves his house on a horse back for his brides house accompanied by his parents, relatives, and a carrier of the Ha-am, a wedding chest of gifts. . Although traditionally, Ha-am has been delivered on the day of the wedding, today's delivery of Ha-am has changed into something new. For the purpose of delivering the Ha-am, the bridegroom gathers his close friends and visits the brides house the night before the marriage. There they decide which one of the friends will imitate a horse and carry the Ha-am on his back. The groom and his friends then enter the brides house and depending on the amount of money the brides family member puts out on the ground, they advance slowly towards the house. In the end, they enter into the brides house and bow politely toward the brides parents expressing gratitude. At the wedding, the couple is seated face to face across a long table on which wedding food like ricecakes, fruits, meats, confections, and other delicacies are put on. Throughout the ceremony, friends tease the couple. And in the end, the brides relatives bind the legs of the resisting groom with a rope and hang him upside down, and a mock torture is administered by beating the soles of the grooms feet with rope while hanging him upside down. With the wedding ceremonies over, the groom spends three nights at the brides house and takes his bride as his own. |