Mothers and Sons in Modern Korea

Mothers and Sons in Modern Korea
Eunhee Kim Yi
Previous studies of Korean families have clearly recognized the

importance of the father-son relationship as the backbone of the
patrilineal family system in Korea (Yi Gwang-gyu 1975, 128). According to the native Korean conception of jip, which can be translated
roughly into family or household, a jip existed permanently
through the endless links between father and son. Historically the
oldest man in the jip represented the family to the state and the
wider community, and his eldest son succeeded to his position as the
representative of the jip. This patrilineal continuity was embodied in
the co-residence of the married sons nuclear family and the fathers
family. That is, the eldest son, upon marriage, would bring his wife
into the existing household which was represented by the father.
After the father died, he inherited ancestral ritual responsibilities and
the largest share of family property. The younger son would set up a
household of his own within a few years of marriage and thereby
start a branch family line. It is well known that in the traditional1
Eunhee Kim Yi (Kim, Eun-hui) is a researcher at the Institute of Yeolin Education,

Seoul, Korea and teaches in the Department of Early Childhood Education at ChungAng University. She received her Ph.D in Anthropology from the University of Chicago.
Her book The Korean Economy Entrapped by Culture was published in 1999 and
translated into Japanese and published by Kyushyu University in 2001. Her research
interests focus on family, gender, work ideology in industrial Korea, the relationship
between familism and economic development, and so on. E-mail: yk3411@chollian.net.
1. The traditional Korean family refers to the family whose various features
emerged in the latter part of the Joseon period, were reinforced during the colonial
period, and existed into the post-Korean War period in the countryside.
KOREA JOURNAL / WINTER 2001
Korean family, paramount importance was placed upon the continuation of the family line, that is, the succession of male headship of the
jip. Being without male issue was likened to the dying out of the
family seed and was considered great calamity.
In this patrilineal system, a woman could not represent a jip in
public. A daughter could neither inherit ancestral ritual responsibilities nor succeed to the headship of the fathers jip. She was useless
as she had to move out of her fathers jip upon marriage and take up
the most inferior position in her husbands jip (sijip). A married
daughter no longer belonged to her fathers jip. Instead, she was to
succeed the position of her mother-in-law and eventually to become
an ancestress of her husbands jip after her death. This inferior position of women in the traditional Korean family is well expressed in
the famous law of the womans three followings in East Asia.
Before marriage, a woman follows her father, who represents her.
After marriage, she follows her husband, and after her husbands
death, she follows her son.
Despite the inferior position of women in the patrilineal family,
women were not simply passive victims of male dominance. The
almost-matriarchal power of the middle-aged woman in the Korean
patrilineal family, as elsewhere in East Asia, has been well reported
in many ethnographies (Beardsley et al. 1959; De Vos 1960; Wolf
1970; Yi Eunhee Kim 1986, 1993; Yi Gwang-gyu 1975). One of the
strategies that a woman employed to gain power in her husbands
family was to form a strong alliance with her sons, who would stay
in the family after marriage. Giving birth to a son was extremely
important for a woman after marrying into her husbands family.
Once the young wife produced an heir, her position in the husbands
family became secure. As her son grew, she often devoted herself to
his social success outside the family. Her future status and power
depended on her son who would provide economic support, social
prestige, and filial love. It was often the case that the mother did
everything for the sons fulfillment and comfort. Particularly, when
the mother was a widow or was dissatisfied with her husband for
various reasons, an outlet for her frustration could be found only in
her devotion to her son. The stories of a mothers devotion to her

sons success outside the family are extremely common. The mothers devotion to her son, in turn, effectively established a filial obligation for the son to repay in the future. After the son grew up and
married, the mothers informal influence over him often overshadowed her husbands formal authority as the head of the family,
which diminished as he grew older (Yi Eunhee Kim 1993, 195-207).
Indeed, this dramatic elevation of the womans status in the course of
the domestic cycle can be viewed as a major characteristic of the
patrilineal family in premodern Korea.
More importantly, in patrilineal systems the strong bond between
the mother and the married son constituted the core of the solidarity
of the patrilineally extended domestic group. Many ethnographies of
rural villages in Korea reveal that the father did not often have close
relationships with his children: the relationship between the father
and the son was often characterized by stiff formality, restraint, and
propriety (Janelli and Janelli 1982, 47-48; Brandt 1971; Dix 1977,
345; Song 1982). The father himself was not expected to interact with
his children directly. When he had something in tell his children, he
usually told his wife, who in turn discussed it with the children and
reported their wishes or thoughts to their father. It was the mother
who inculcated the patrilineal ideology in the children in everyday
life. This is clearly seen in how the conflicts between the mother-inlaw and the daughter-in-law were resolved (Yi Eunhee Kim 1993,
202-207). It was often the case for the mother to eagerly defend the
patrilineal ideology of the jip in the face of the potential disruption of
her own control over her son and to stress the subordination of the
young wife to her husband and his jip. Mothers indoctrinated their
sons by telling them that his parents and brothers were more important than a wife.
The nuclearization of families in modern Korea, however,
implies that this pattern of the mother-son relationship also changed.
The present article examines the relationship between the mother
and son in the urban middle class and shows that mothers have lost
their control over their sons and sons wives. I argue that the break
in mother-son solidarity leads to the actual dissolution of the patrilineal extended family as a functioning group and that the loss of the
mothers control over the son has led to the weakening of son preference and the disappearance of the practice of adoption. I further
show that with the weakening of the mother-son solidarity emerged a
a matrilateral bias in kinship. I also suggest that extravagant honsu
(dowry) in modern Korea be viewed as a compensation for the mothers loss of control over her married son.2
Nuclearization of Families and the Patrilineal Extended Family

in Modern Korea
One of the profound changes the traditional Korean family has undergone since the 1960s is nuclearization. For women, serving the husbands parents and ancestors was the most salient function in the
traditional conception of the family. The absolute obedience of the
children to parents was the most important moral principle, encouraged in traditional familism under the name of filial piety. Parents
chose the marriage partner of the child and the married son brought
his wife to the parental household. In modern Korea, however, children choose their own marriage partners and usually set up their
own households.
High geographic mobility, the result of industrialization and
urbanization, makes it difficult for married sons to continue to live in
their natal household with their parents and unmarried siblings. Geographic mobility resulting from job assignment provides an opportu-
2. Data used in this article were part of data collected over a period of four years
from 1997 to 2001 when I was engaged in a research project called The Dissolution and Restructuring of Kinship/Families, which was funded by Korean
Research Foundation. I carried out informal in-depth interviews of selected individuals and observed and talked with numerous middle-class Koreans including
my neighbors, relatives, friends, and acquaintances. The term my interviewees
in the present article refers those fellow Koreans whom I talked with about their
and other peoples family lives.
nity to move out of the parents household without necessarily

breaching the moral principle of filial piety. Most parents do not hold
their children back for their own comfort. Rather, they are eager to
support their childrens mobility.
More importantly, the idea itself that the son has to live with his
parents has become weak. It is now acceptable for the married eldest
son to live separately from his parents, even when they live in the
same city. Parents themselves often refuse to live with their married
sons nuclear family. Many women with grown children told me that
they want to live separately from their married sons. They said, it is
inconvenient or uncomfortable to live with their son and his wife.
Also, there is a new trend in which, as long as there are unmarried
siblings, a married son tends to set up his own household (Yi Eunhee
Kim 1993, 280-285).
The emergence of the nuclear family and of romantic marriages,
however, does not necessarily mean that a cultural sanction is placed
on the independence and autonomy of the individual and the nuclear
family, as is the case in the West. For most interviewees, living separately from their parents does not mean that the married son is not a
member of the jip. Even when married sons do not live with their
parents, they, together with their wives and children, are still considered members of one jip , which may be also called patrilineal
extended family, while married daughters and their children are not.
Despite the prevalence of romantic marriages, marriage itself is still
viewed as an introduction of the bride to the grooms jip. The bridegrooms family provides the new couple with a place to live and
assists the couple financially if the husband does not earn enough to
maintain a living standard appropriate to his family status. The
brides family is in turn expected to provide the daughter with honsu
home appliances, furniture, gifts for the bridegrooms family members and relatives, among other things.
Although reluctant to live with a married sons nuclear family,
parents do not treat the sons nuclear family as an independent
household. Neither do the married children who profess their desire
for freedom believe that grown children should be independent of
10
and autonomous from their parents. It is often the case that the
salary of a young husband who has just started his career is not sufficient to support his nuclear family independently. When the married
son is not economically independent, say, he is a resident or graduate
student, the husbands family is expected to provide economic assistance. Newly married couples go on to have children without considering whether or not they can support a family themselves. There is a
strong expectation that the husbands family will help the newlywed
couple until they get on their own feet. Temporary co-residence with
the husbands family is also frequent for economic reasons. When a
sons nuclear family lives at the parents house, the parents usually
pay the living expenses of the extended household and the sons family saves their income. Therefore in a well-to-do family, when the
married son lives with the parents, he gets considerable economic
assistance from his parents. Even when parents are not well-off, it is
often the case that the parents pay for most of the housekeeping
expenses of the extended household.
When the parents are poor, of course, the sons nuclear family
does not get much financial help. The economic exchange between
parents and sons depends on the relative wealth of parents and children. If the parents are much better off than the children, resources
will flow from the parents to the children. If parents are needy, married sons are expected to help their parents financially. Even when
the parents and the married sons maintain relatively independent
households, they act out of mutual dependency, which involves the
frequent exchange of resources between the parents household and
the sons.
The married son gradually succeeds to his fathers position and
the sons wife to his mothers position. Even when a young married
couple lives in their own nuclear family, the eldest son and his wife
represent the jip to the wider kin community, whereas married daughters do not. The eldest son inherits jesa (ancestral ritual) responsibilities and visits relatives with his wife as a representative of the jip,
including his parents, his brothers, and their wives and children. For
example, the eldest son and his wife pay a visit to relatives on Seollal
11
(New Years Day) and at Chuseok (Full Moon Day) as representatives

of the family. As long as there is a son, a daughter never inherits the
jesa, and a married daughter does not attend jesa, unless it is for her
own parents. The married son, not a married daughter, is responsible
for preparing a birthday party for the parents. The main responsibility for the care of old parents falls on the son and his wife. When one
parent dies, the married son and his wife are expected to take in the
single parent. Married daughters do not have these obligations.
The sons role as a representative of the family becomes evident
when there are big family events such as funerals, weddings, sixtieth
birthday banquets for parents, or when a family member gets
involved in something like a traffic accident. At large family gatherings he receives and greets male guests. He also attends weddings
and other family gatherings as a representative of the jip. On these
occasions, parents can show off the married sons achievement in
society. The son also deals with government offices, which are
staffed mostly by men. When an old father, for example, has a traffic
accident, his married son, not a married daughter or son-in-law, will
go to the police and handle bureaucratic and legal matters by mobilizing his social network.
As a son represents the family, his most important obligation to
the extended family, as in the past, is to bring honor to the extended
family by getting ahead in the world. His pursuit of success in the
larger society is not seen as the pursuit of his own selfish interests
at the expense of filial piety toward his parents. Fulfilling his representative role is achieved by rising to a high position and helping his
siblings when it is necessary. Above all, husbands in modern industrial Korea have to work long hours and spend after-work evening
hours socializing with colleagues or friends (Yi Eunhee Kim 1998).
Hence, the son often leaves to his wife most of the matters related to
the extended family. The husband may not visit his parents on their
birthday because of his busy work schedule, but his wife should not
forget to prepare for his parents birthday parties. That is, it is considered acceptable for a man to miss his own parents birthday party
when he is very busy with work, as long as his wife takes care of it.
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The husband usually responds to his wifes complaint about his parents or siblings just by saying, please dont make me worry about
family matters.
Therefore, most practical work concerning the extended family is
done by his wife. She is expected to do various jiban il (inside work
or family matters) under the supervision of her mother-in-law. When
the daughter-in-law visits the husbands family, she works with the
mother-in-law in the kitchen. She prepares for jesa and for holidays
such as Seollal and Chuseok and takes care of other large and small
family affairs with her mother-in-law. She reminds her husband of
important family events such as ancestral ceremonies, relatives weddings or birthdays, and prepares presents or gifts for those occasions.
She may make winter kimchi (gimjang) with her mother-in-law. She
visits her husbands relatives with her mother-in-law or alone, as an
inside representative of the jip. For both younger and older sons,
temporary co-residence is also frequent on the grounds that the sons
wife should learn the customs of the sijip (the husbands family) and
feel comfortable within the husbands extended family. Many interviewees who did not want to live with their husbands family told me
that they might live with their married son and his wife temporarily
in the future.
The Weakening of the Alliance Between Mother and Son

Despite the persistence of the patrilineal ideology, the parents control
over married sons has weakened considerably. Above all, a married
sons relationship with his natal family tends to be mediated by his
wife who does the inside work of maintaining the extended family
relationships in order to allow the husband to concentrate on his work
outside the family. In particular, the relationship between mother and
son often becomes strained after the sons marriage.
The relationship between father and son, as in the traditional
Korean family, is not an emotionally close one. Women interviewees
invariably mentioned that their husbands tend to feel uncomfortable
13
in their fathers presence. Male interviewees did not remember ever

having talked to their fathers in a context other than a ritualized formal interaction. Rather, the sons tend to discuss things that concern
them with their mothers. When a husband is considered a filial son,
it is the mother who is the object of the his respect and love. The
husbands who is a filial son also sees no problem in living with his
own married son in the future.
Yet, after marriage, the son leaves all the family matters to his
wife so that he can pursue success in the larger society outside the
family. For example, the husband does not know the details of the
household economy. Most men I interviewed did not know whether
or not their wives paid for food when they lived at their parents
house. That is, the husbands in many families let their wives handle
most financial matters as they see fit. Likewise, in the fathers household, it is the mother who is in charge of the management of the
household. Therefore, the mother and the sons wife come to compete with each other for the control of the resources within the patrilineal extended family. Moreover, the rules regarding the division of
responsibilities and the distribution of economic resources within the
extended family are not always clear. It is only natural that conflicts
and discord arise between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law
who are in charge of the management of the respective households.
Most wives interviewed were very conscious of the close relationship between their husbands and mothers-in-law and came up
with certain strategies to minimize the mother-in-laws influence.
Above all, the wife attempts to mediate between her husband and
mother-in-law. One interviewee explains her strategy:
I do not talk much at the official meeting with my in-laws. I make
my mother-in-law talk with my husband. Of course, I talk with my
husband beforehand and make a decision and then let my husband
talk to his mother. I do not want to take responsibility. My motherin-law first tells me about jiban il (family matters) and then, tells
my husband about it.
14
The wife is particularly vigilant when it comes to her husbands giving money to his mother without the wifes knowledge. When her
husband gives money to his mother or father, it is a widespread practice for the wife to make her husband hand over money to his parents in her presence.
As the wife mediates between her husband and her mother and
siblings, the sons wife in the nuclear family is, as in the past, considered responsible for maintaining a harmonious extended family and
often blamed when conflicts arise between the married son and the
mother. The mother-in-law and sisters-in-law often get suspicious of
the sons wife and see the son as easily manipulated by her.
In the case of serious conflicts between the mother-in-law and
the daughter-in-law, the mother-in-law in the traditional Korean family could draw upon the support of her son and thereby could control
the daughter-in-law by appealing to the ideology of filial piety which
emphasized the absolute obedience of the daughter-in-law to her parents-in-law. In modern Korea, however, absolute obedience to parents-in-law is no longer acceptable to most young wives.
In the modern Korean family, although the sons wife usually
prefers not to live with her husbands parents, the parents authority
over a married son and his wife is well recognized on the grounds
that the husbands parents have raised the husband. Yet, most interviewees did not believe that they should always obey their parentsin-law. A superiors autocratic control over an inferior is challenged
in the name of democracy. Therefore, defiance of the mother-inlaws authority is commonplace among young married women. Interviewees family histories reveal that many female interviewees have
challenged their mothers-in-law and had verbal fights with them.
The weakened authority of the mother-in-law is clear even in
cases where a married son and his wife live with the sons parents.
In the past, a married eldest sons nuclear family and his parents
formed a collective economic unit under the supervision of the sons
mother as the inside master. That is, they pooled their resources.
Now, family resources are not pooled as was expected in the traditional family. It is often the case that the young couple keeps a sepa-
15
rate account. Many of my informants who once lived in extended

families told me that their husbands brought their salary not to the
mother but to the wife. Usually, the wife gave a portion of her husbands salary to her mother-in-law as their share of the living expenses. After a few years of marriage, the daughter-in-law took over the
management of the household. In the extended families studied, the
husbands mother did not have control over household money.
In the following case, the son and his wife moved out of the
mother-in-laws household when the sons mother demanded that
her daughter-in-law be more like a traditional daughter-in-law.
The Case of the Ku Family
Mr. and Mrs. Ku got married in 1982. Ku Yeong-su, who was born in
1953, graduated from medical school and was serving in the army as
a military doctor when he married in 1980. He was the only son in
the family. His father, who was a high-ranking official, passed away
in 1977. The son, who was a university student at that time, inherited the fathers house. That is, the son became the legal owner of the
house where the family lived. But it was the mother who actually
managed the household and family property. The mother sold the
house and the family moved into an apartment. Upon marriage, the
son brought in his wife and lived together with his widowed mother
and his unmarried younger sister in that apartment. He also had two
married elder sisters.
After three years of co-residence, however, the son and his wife
wanted to move out. The wife put the apartment on the market without any prior discussion with the mother. The son did not know that
and apologized to the mother for not having informed her beforehand, but she got very sad and angry. The son and his wife eventually bought an apartment with money they borrowed from the wifes
family and moved out of the mothers apartment. According to Ku
Min-ja, who was the second daughter and narrated this story, the
mother felt very hurt. The mother was told that her son was moving
out just a day before. The mother came to see her daughter and
16
cried.
Ku Min-ja mentioned the conflict between the mother and the
daughter-in-law. The son was the successor to the senior family line.
Therefore there were many ancestral rituals to perform and the mother was strong-willed and diligent. The mother was critical of her
daughter-in-law, who, according to Ku Min-ja, did not live up to the
mothers expectations and failed to produce a son. Ku Min-ja admitted that it must not have been easy for the daughter-in-law. The
daughter-in-law, in turn, refused to eat cold rice, left-over rice from
a previous meal. It was a normal practice in the traditional Korean
family for the young daughter-in-law to volunteer to eat cold
rice, while giving freshly cooked rice to other family members, that
is, the husband, the husbands parents and siblings. But the daughter-in-law felt humiliated when the mother-in-law expected her to do
so. Further, the sons nuclear family was economically dependent on
his mother as he was serving in the army as a military doctor. The
husband gave his mother his meager salary that he earned as a military doctor. The daughter-in-law got depressed and talked less and
less to her mother-in-law. She also had chronic stomachache, which,
according to her sister-in-law, were probably caused by the conflict
with her mother-in-law.
Soon after the sons nuclear family moved out of the mothers
household, the son and his wife inherited the responsibilities for
ancestral rituals from the mother. In 1995, however, they decided to
emigrate to New Zealand for the education of their two daughters.
But in New Zealand, Mr. Ku could not find a job as a medical doctor
and therefore moved back to Korea and worked for a hospital in one
of the provinces. Mrs. Ku, on the other hand, stayed in New Zealand,
raising the two daughters. She also continued to perform ancestral
rituals in New Zealand, while her husband in Korea supported her
and the children. Mr. Ku has also sent about $250 to his mother
every month for six years. Ku Min-ja sees this monthly payment as a
kind of repayment of the money the mother contributed to the sons
purchase of an office for his medical practice.
Recently the relations between mother and son have been very
17
strained. The conflict between them centers on the management of

the inheritance from the father and on the issue of who is going to
take care of the ailing mother, who is in her early eighties and cannot
walk around well. According to Ku Min-ja, the son thinks his jip did
not do anything for him. When he and his nuclear family wanted to
move out of the mothers household, he expected his mother to sell
the apartment and to provide him and his nuclear family with a new
place to live. But, the son had to move out with money borrowed
from the wifes family. Also, when his family emigrated to New
Zealand, according to the son, the mother did not contribute any
money, in contrast to the wifes family who gave a considerable
amount to support their resettlement. Ku Min-ja further suggested
that her brother was dissatisfied with the heavy responsibilities of
being the successor. According to her, her brother had a girlfriend
when he was a high-school student but had to give her up because of
the mothers opposition. The girlfriend was a daughter of a concubine and planned to emigrate to America.
Still, the son wants his mother to sell the apartment he inherited
from his father and give him the money received from the sale. He
thinks it is his inheritance. On the other hand, although it is legally
owned by the son, the mother does not think it is automatically her
sons share. The mother thinks the apartment will go to the son eventually but that she has the right to manage it as she sees fit until she
dies. The sister also sees the apartment as her mothers, and that the
sons legal ownership at issue was just a strategy to avoid the inheritance tax that will be levied when he inherits it after his mothers
death. In the mothers and the sisters view, the sons ownership of
the apartment is premised on the assumption that the son fulfills the
role expected of him as successor. The son, however, failed to take
on this role by emigrating to a foreign country with his nuclear family, leaving his mother alone in Korea, and he still does not show any
willingness to take in his mother. When the mother visited the sons
nuclear family in New Zealand, she and her son quarreled over the
inheritance. According to Ku Min-ja, when the mother had a traffic
accident and was hospitalized for three months in Seoul, the son,
18
who worked for a provincial hospital in Korea, visited his mother

only once.
Recently the mother sold the apartment at issue and bought
another apartment in her own name. When the sister told her brother
(Ku Yeong-su) about this, he got angry, criticizing his mother for not
discussing the matter with him. The mother declared that the apartment, after she dies, will go to a child who takes care of her. She no
longer expects her son to take care of her. She feels so deeply
betrayed that she thinks she failed to bring up a filial son. Now she
lives with her eldest daughter, who has been a widow for many
years, in the apartment she bought. She stopped attending family
social gatherings many years ago on the grounds that she did not
want to disgrace her son.
Ku Min-ja stresses that before marriage, her brother was obedient to his mother and never made trouble, suggesting that the conflict between the son and the mother was caused by the sons calculating wife after their marriage. The son was a model student and
attended a prestigious high school and medical school in Korea. As
the only son, he received special treatment in the family. When he
was a child, all of his toys were expensive and imported. After marriage, however, he changed. His refusal to take care of his mother, in
Ku Min-jas view, reflects his wifes, and probably his wifes mothers, opinion.
Educating a Mamas Boy: The Case of Jeong Su-gyeong
Although I could not interview the daughter-in-law, it is commonplace for a young married woman to comment that her husband does
not have much say on economic matters in the patrilineal extended
family. The husband is often seen by his wife as reluctant to confront
his parents. Here we see the son caught between a mother and wife
who are in conflict. The young wife often attempts to weaken the
close relationship between her husband and his mother. Jeong Sugyeong is a case in point.
Su-gyeong met her husband, Kim Jun, through a match-maker
19
and they have been married for about ten years. Her husband works
for his fathers chemical engineering company. Although the company is medium-sized, her father-in-law is a successful businessman.
Her husband is the eldest son in the family and has one younger
brother and one younger sister. He will succeed the fathers position
not only in the family but also in the company. According to Sugyeong, however, she had a hard time economically during the early
years of marriage. Once married, they lived separately from her husbands family but her father-in-law, who is very stingy and austere,
paid his son only about 700,000 won (about 540 dollars) a month for
his salary. She could manage the household only with financial help
from her mother. She felt betrayed by her mother-in-law, who had
promised her a comfortable life before marriage. She even brought a
large amount of honsu to the husbands family. Two years later, she
confronted her mother-in-law: she told her mother-in-law that she
could not live on her husbands salary. After that incident the father
raised the sons salary. As of 1998, her husband was receiving
3,000,000 won (2,500 dollars) a month from his father.
What made her married life more difficult was that her husband
was a mama boy (Koreanized version of the English mamas
boy). He was emotionally dependent on and controlled by his mother. According to Su-gyeong, his mother was very controlling, domineering, and persuasive, and she effectively controlled all three of her
grown-up children. Her husbands dependence on his mother is
closely tied to his relationship with his father. His father was very
smart, proud, and successful, but he was also very authoritarian and
strict with his children. Moreover, her husband was not living up to
his fathers expectations. He was neither smart nor professionally
competent, although he was kind-hearted. The father did not express
his love at all and gave his son only the burden of being his successor. The son, therefore, was very unhappy at the time of his marriage. Her husbands emotional dependence on his mother can be
seen in the fact that his mother knew in detail about what was going
on in the sons relationship with his wife. Su-gyeong made up her
mind to educate her husband once she learned that her mother-in-
20
law knew that she and her husband had a quarrel. She told her husband that she would divorce him if he kept telling his mother what
happened between them and that she and her husband should try to
resolve their conflicts by themselves. She pointed out some of his
mothers problems to her husband: her hypocrisy, her lies, her failure to protect him from his fathers harsh treatment, and so on. Her
husband recognized his mothers problems, and after that incident,
he stopped talking with his mother about his personal life.
Su-gyeong thinks she succeeded in the war with her mother-inlaw for the control of her husband. She recognizes that she had an
advantage because of neo-local residence; it was she who lived with
her husband. She is also cautious, stressing that what is important is
the good management of the relationship with her husband. She tries
to make him self-confident by showing him respect and treating him
well.
The Wifes Family
Importantly, both Ku Min-jas and Jeong Su-gyeongs narratives show
the critical role of the wifes family in shaping the relationship
between the mother and the married son. From the daughter-in-laws
perspective, her natal family ( chinjeong ) provides an important
resource for coping with conflicts with the mother-in-law. In the case
of the Ku family, the daughter-in-laws challenge of the mother-inlaws control of the household was made possible by economic assistance from her chinjeong. This kind of economic assistance from the
wifes family is widespread in the Korean middle class (Yi Eunhee
Kim 1993, 324-335). The wifes family usually provides the newly
married couple with rice, food, clothes, toys for the children, and so
on. Also, a young couple often borrows money without interest from
the wifes family when they buy a new home.
Besides economic assistance, a young married daughter receives
helpful advice from her mother or sister about how to cope with a
demanding mother-in-law. According to Jeong Su-gyeong, when her
husbands income was not enough to live on, it was her mother who
21
supplemented his meager salary. It was also her mother who helped
her interpret the situation in her husbands family: she brought
extravagant honsu expenses but the husbands family failed to provide even for the sons nuclear family. Su-gyeongs mothers anger
encouraged Su-gyeong to ask her mother-in-law to raise the sons
salary and her husband to stop being a mama boy.
Neo-local residence makes it particularly easy for newly married
women to maintain close relationships with their mothers and sisters.
The mother who does not live with her sons nuclear family feels free
to give things to her daughter, and the daughter who does not live
with her mother-in-law also feels free to visit her chinjeong. Women
usually visit their chinjeong without their husbands in the daytime
during the week, and with their husbands on Sundays, holidays, or
on special occasions. In the middle class, young married women visit
their chinjeong parents or sisters more frequently than they do their
sijip (Yi Eunhee Kim 1993, 325). Also, they sometimes live close to
their chinjeong. They may live in the same apartment complex or
even live with their chinjeong. Married sisters also visit and phone
each other very often.
People often explain the relationship between a married daughter
and her chinjeong in terms of jeong (affection). Young interviewees
invariably told me that they were most concerned with their chinjeong and that they were close to their sijip only out of a sense of
duty.
As a consequence, the married son is often drawn into the wifes
family. Due to tensions and conflicts between the wife and the mother-in-law, the sons nuclear family rarely vacations with his family.
Rather, they vacation with the wifes family. Young wives also make
their husbands attend family get-togethers.
In Ku family, the sons wife maintains a close relationship with
her chinjeong . Since the sons nuclear family emigrated to New
Zealand, financial matters related to the management of the husbands property have been handled by the wifes family. The wife,
when she comes to Korea for a visit, goes to her chinjeong even
before seeing her mother-in-law. When the mother visited her sons
22
family in New Zealand, she returned home in two weeks, cancelling

her original plan to stay much longer. But, the wifes mother stayed
at her daughters house more than six months. The wifes family,
including her siblings, frequently visit their daughters nuclear family
in New Zealand, while the husbands sisters, who thought that their
brother had abandoned his mother, have not visited them at all.
Economic assistance from the wifes family, in turn, strengthens
her position in negotiating with her husband and the sijip. A sons
wife who receives lots of economic assistance from her family
expects her sijip to treat her better (Yi Eunhee Kim 1993, 335). In the
Ku family, the sons complaint about his own mother was that the
wifes family helped a lot but his own family did not do much. Jeong
Su-gyeong also felt that she could make a demand on her sijip to
raise her husbands salary because she herself had brought a great
deal of honsu. In a sense, the traditional subordination of the daughter-in-law to the husbands parents has been overturned by economic
assistance from the wifes family. Now, the husbands family has less
claim on the wifes service.
Married Daughters
A married daughter, in turn, helps her chinjeong when her parents
are old or in need of financial assistance. She may give spending
money to needy parents on special occasions or even regularly. She
takes care of a sick parent, even when she does not live with that
parent. She occasionally buys clothes for old parents.
Ku Min-jas narrative shows that mothers also maintain close
relationships with married daughters, who are normatively supposed
to be outsiders. In practice, daughters are no longer outsiders.
Married daughters often take on the role of mediator between the
mother and the son and wife. When the daughter-in-law decided to
move out of the mothers household, she first went to see the husbands eldest sister to get some sort of understanding and permission. But, the eldest sister asked her to be more patient and to wait a
few more years. The Ku familys married daughters also gave their
23
mother spending money, with or without the knowledge of their husbands. They provided hospital expenses when she was hospitalized
after the sons emigration. It was also Ku Min-ja, the second daughter, who arranged the co-residence of the mother and the eldest
daughter in the mothers apartment and persuaded them to live
together. The daughters also viewed their brothers emigration as an
attempt to avoid his responsibility to take care of their aging mother
and tried to change their mothers position that the apartment inherited from the father should go to the son after she dies.
Daughters Are Better than Sons: The Weakening

of Son Preference and the Disappearance of Adoption
With the loss of effective control over her daughter-in-law, a mother
tend to feel betrayed by or disappointed with her married son. It is
often said that sons are useless and that a mothers devotion to her
son only benefits the daughter-in-law. The sons marriage is also seen
as the transfer of the son from the mother to the sons wife. The
sense of the loss of the sons loyalty to his mother in modern Korea is
evident in the weakening of son preference and the disappearance of
adoption.
Childbearing and child rearing are still important duties of the
wife within the patrilineal extended family. Having a child is not a
matter of private choice but a matter of the husbands jip. Having a
son is still particularly valued, although having many sons is no
longer desired by most young couples. I was often told that a married
woman feels like she passed an examination when she had a boy. A
woman feels that her position in the husbands family has become
secure.
Yet, people have lost the faith that in their old age they can
depend upon their son for their general well-being. The absolute
value placed upon having a son has weakened. Those who think one
should have a son stress the representative role of the son for the jip
rather than his economic capacity. When there is no man in the jip, it
24
is said, they cannot handle significant family affairs which involve

the representation of the family to outside political structures or the
larger community. For example, old people need a son on the occasion of a funeral or a traffic accident. A man handles matters related
to the police and bureaucratic offices. The son-in-law does not take
good care of big family affairs. Hence, the son gives a sense of security and plays the role of fence (ultari) for the extended family. Many
people have told me they felt secure when they had a son.
Those who favor daughters over sons are people who have been
disappointed by a distant or cool relationship between a married son
and his parents. They stress that married daughters are more concerned with their parents than are sons. Married daughters no longer
live far away from the parents. They often live in the same city or
even in the same apartment complex. Parents receive a lot of informal support from their married daughters. When asked whether a
son is better than a daughter, they contrast a daughter with a daughter-in-law. Daughters understand their parents better and are nice to
their parents out of affection, while the daughter-in-law is only nice
out of a sense of duty. In their view, the son, who deals with the
matter of representing the family to the outside world, does not have
much affection.
The old practice of adopting a son from agnates has almost disappeared. None of those who had only daughters told me about
plans to adopt a son. This decline in the practice of adoption shows
that the importance of jesa has weakened. But it also reflects changes
in the perception of the relationship between the mother and the son.
In response to questions about adoption, people often comment that
even their own son does not want to live with his old parents and
that people want to give property to their own daughter, the blood
child, rather than to distant agnates.
25
Conclusion
The present analysis shows the critical importance of the mother-son
tie in the maintenance of the patrilineal family as a functional group.
It further raises the issue of whether patrilineal ideology in modern
Korea is workable in practice. In modern Korea the conflict between
the mother and the sons wife leads to a rather distanced relationship
between the mother and her married son, and in some cases, to the
breaking of ties between them, which can raise the issue of the dissolution of the patrilineal extended family. In a sense the serious conflicts between the mother and her married son in the Ku family have
led to the breakdown of the patrilineal extended family which is supposed to exist for generations. Now Ku patrilineal extended family is
not functioning at all. Is the mother part of her sons family? If so, in
what sense? Obviously, the aging mother is not taken care of by her
son and his wife, although the son has sent money to her. When the
son emigrated to New Zealand, the mother was not included in the
sons family. Also, after emigration, the son no longer took on the
role of the successor who represents the family to the extended kin
community and to society.
Further, the cases studied in this article show that despite the
ideology of jip as a patrilineal extended family, which excludes married daughters, married daughters could not remain outsiders to
their natal family in practice. They often interfered with the relationship between a mother and a married brother. They watched to see
whether their mother was well taken care of by the son and his wife.
Conversely, the parents could not treat the married daughter as an
outsider. When the married daughter had a hard time adjusting to
her husbands family, they helped her cope with these problems.
This is to say that the break of mother-son solidarity is not just an
individual matter between the mother and the son but a matter of
transaction and negotiation between the husbands family and the
wifes family. With more interference from the wifes family, which
provides an often extravagant honsu to the husbands family, the
sons wife is no longer subject to absolute subordination to her moth-
26
er-in-law. In a way, the recent increase of honsu can be seen as

material compensation for the mothers loss of control over her son.
The weakening of the alliance between mother and son goes hand in
hand with the emergence of a matrilateral bias as found in bilateral
kinship.
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Dix, Griffin. 1977. The East Asian Country of Propriety: Confucianism in a
Korean Village. Ph.D. diss., University of California Press.
Janelli, Roger L., and Dawnhee Yim Janelli. 1982 . Ancestor Worship and
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Song, Sunhee. 1982. Kinship and Lineage in Korean Society. Ph.D. diss.,
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Yi, Eunhee Kim. 1986. Implications of Conjugal Role Segregation for
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27
GLOSSARY
chinjeong
Chuseok
gimjang
honsu
jeong
jesa
jiban il
jip
Seollal
sijip
ultari

Mothers and Sons in Modern Korea

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Mothers and Sons in Modern Korea

Previous studies of Korean families have clearly recognized the

Eunhee Kim Yi (Kim, Eun-hui) is a researcher at the Institute of Yeolin Education,

KOREA JOURNAL / WINTER 2001