Marriage advice from a mother

Reading Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Take good care of your husband. Otherwise, another woman will. Treat your husband’s family with reverence. Obey them. If you make mistakes, they’ll curse our family. Think of your kind father, who always did his best for us. Your home is with your husband. Never come home again. Make a good home for him and your child. That’s your job. They must not suffer. Do what you can to please your husband. Men need to have sex.

I recently read Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. It has a sharp contrast what men & women expect from marriage. For one it’s about survival for another its about comfortable living. If a man earns well, bringing a wife home will establish a comfortable living. If he doesn’t earn well, then bringing a wife home will be a struggle for him because then it’s an added responsibility of wife & kids.

This book is in the time period of 1900s, when Korea was colonized by Japan. America dropped atom bombs in Heroshima & Nagasaki. And, Korea got divided into North Korea & South Korea.

It was a weird turf where Koreans were being colonized but saw Japanese as their superiors. They wanted to be like Japanesse, talk like Japanese and some even wanted to completely erase their identity of being a Korean and wanted to become a Japanese citizen.

Amidst all this, imagine a woman getting pregnant before marriage.

In a time when it was a task for fathers to get their daughters to marry when they were virgins because it was better for virgins to marry anyone than to scrounge for food when men & women were hungry and virtue was expensive.

To save face, the girl was married to a minister of church and shipped off from Korea to Japan.

Men have choices that women don’t.

During war, Noblewomen hide silver knives in their blouses to protect themselves or to commit suicide if they were dishonored. The fact that something like this happened is bad in itself but the shame and honor is what makes women attempt suicide is more disturbing to me. The fact that honor is bigger than life itself. Specially when It was no fault of yours. You were brave. You fought. You weren’t a coward. Then what are they punished for?

Mothers didn’t have rights to visit their own daughters once they are married. I am always baffled, how did we allow this to happen? How did we became so oppressed that we couldn’t meet our own parents.

But then I realize oh wait, the parents wanted to get rid of us as well. Their whole life’s mission becomes when a daughter is born to get her married as soon as possible.

Women themselves want son because they won’t leave them when they marry. Hence, the extra attachment.

If it’s a boy, you’ll need fees for school.

Because education is only important for men. Women are good without education. This has prominently been done in India too. Government schools have a high percentage of girl students because their brothers are studying in private schools. Conventionally, the best is always offered to the men.

The woman who got pregnant before marriage and was married off to a minster, her name was Sunja. Sunja gave birth two sons.

One believed:

Life is a game where players can adjust the dials yet also expect the uncertainty of factors he couldn’t control. He understood why his customers wanted to play something (pachinko - a gambling game) that looked fixed but also left room for randomness and hope.

The other brother believed:

If he followed all the rules, and was the best then somehow the hostile world will change its mind. This cruel ideals took his life.

No matter how good and model citizen you are, if you have rigid beliefs you can’t be at peace. People who surrender to the uncertainty factor of life are more open to play the game life offers them.

The book covers the story of 4 generations. By the end, the scenes change. The 4th generation is when mothers are working in offices and don’t cook food for their family. This fact is hard to digest for the women of older generations even though they suffered so much because of it. They aren’t able to fathom, how can a woman choose NOT to cook. Who will feed the kids and husband then?

I first came across this book on an Instagram carousel. It was titled under, “Books to read as a feminist.” I am not a hardcore follower of labels but nevertheless the title intrigued me and I ended up saving some books for reading later.

• I who have never known men by Jacqueline Harpman
  It has an interesting premise of 40 women who were imprisoned for ages

• Educated by Tara Westover
  It has interesting premise about self education and what happens with the lack of education

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
  I got hooked by the storyline & the grit of the female main character.

Signing off
- Akanksha