She became a schoolteacher at the age of twenty, and since then, she had devoted her life to the country that had raised her. She found a new identity in her occupation, and she made her classroom her new home. She considered her students’ future as her future, which was to become loyal citizens of the country. She used every cent of her salary for her students, for her teaching materials, and even for her sick students who could not afford to buy medication.
When the schoolteacher turned twenty-nine, someone introduced her to a coal miner. They met only a couple of times. She did not pry too much into the coal miner’s past or his upbringing. She only desired a husband who would understand her passion for teaching. The coal miner promised that she could continue working as a teacher, which pleased her greatly. They got married soon thereafter.
On that first night in bed together, she placed her head on the coal miner’s firm chest and wept inconsolably like a young child. She recalled the dreary nights of waking up to desolate darkness, absolute solitude in the absence of her parents. It was a terrifying experience for any child to endure. Sadder still, her parents could not attend their daughter’s wedding. They could not witness how their daughter had grown up to become a respectable woman. A sudden indescribable fear seized her as the possibility of forgetting tonight’s happiness clouded her thoughts. But what she feared most was that she would lose her love for teaching. She wept fearful tears; she sobbed through the night.
As for her personal belongings, she had only a small chest, a desk, and some books. However, on her wedding day, the neighbors, comrades, students, and the students’ parents showered her with gifts, which filled her small room. Some students and their parents from ten years ago somehow had heard about her wedding and attended. The town had never before seen such a large wedding ceremony. The coal miner thought that his bride had always lived in solitude. But, when he saw the entire town showering her with gifts and love, he was bewildered and delighted at the same time. He was deeply moved by the impression his wife had made on the townspeople, and so he loved her and respected her all the more. When he would return home from work and hear her talking with her students, he would close the door, go downstairs, and smoke a cigarette until she was done. He would go up only after the students finished talking with their teacher. The coal miner had maintained his commitment and loyalty to his wife all these years as if they were still newlyweds.
Jeong Jin Wu stepped aside from the front gate of the apartment.
The schoolteacher ducked past Jeong Jin Wu as if she were sorry about something. She unfolded the umbrella and stood in the rain waiting for her husband.
Jeong Jin Wu turned and slowly climbed the stairs back to his home, dragging his heavy feet up the endless flight into the void. He knew that even if he went home, there would be no one to greet him. He felt utterly desolate and frustrated with his wife. She had been away twenty days this month, the month of April. It had not even been a week since she returned from her laboratory before she left again. He considered his life no different from that of a widower. He resented his wife and her research.
As he approached the second floor, he heard the sound of wet shoes, muffled voices, and the folding of an umbrella downstairs.
“Why did you wait for me in the rain?” asked the coal miner. “Didn’t think I would come home?” It was always the same brusque greeting coupled with frivolity.
“Why are you so late?” asked his concerned wife.
“You see, I was installing a crane. And it got late. Everybody had already gone home, you see, so I had to do it all by myself. Ah, my back is killing me.”
“And you didn’t just happen to pass by the bar.”
The coal miner guffawed. “Do I smell like alcohol? I quit drinking, honey!”
“Since when? Tonight?”
“Of course!”
“Would a ten-year drinking habit stop overnight?”
“It’s going to be overnight.”
“Really? You promise?”
By the time Jeong Jin Wu reached the third floor, he could barely make out what the two were saying. The coal miner’s and schoolteacher’s voices faded away as they entered their apartment.
“Honey, do you need more of that crochet thingy?” asked the coal miner.
“Why do you ask?”
“I was thinking of getting more for you at the store.”
“The store at this hour? Don’t try to be sneaky. You want to go out and drink some more, don’t you?”
“How in the world did you know that?”
“You’re very easy to read. In any case, I don’t need more.”
“That’s too bad. You see, honey, the weather’s getting colder. Do we still have some of that juice left inside the closet?”
“It’s been three minutes since you quit.”
“Come on, just one glass. I can’t divorce alcohol. I fell in love with her long before I met you,” said the coal miner laughing.
The teacher quietly shook her head.
Jeong Jin Wu thought that perhaps his son had sent a letter, so he checked the mailbox again even though he had checked it earlier that day. It was an excuse to put off entering his desolate apartment.
When he entered, he was greeted by frigid air. He shivered.
He remembered the small greenhouse in the master bedroom. When he went there, the ventilation window was wide open, letting in the cold air. The leaves of the peanut plant were trembling because of the brisk wind coming in. He quickly closed the ventilation window and looked at the thermometer. Fortunately, the temperature had not dropped too much. Although he was worried about some of the young plants, he thought that they ought to learn how to adapt to the cold climate.
Jeong Jin Wu watered the young seedlings. A variety of plants had begun to sprout and showed signs of blooming soon. Peppers, tomatoes, cabbages, radishes, and other plants were awakening from their deep slumber.
Nearly all the plants were products of his wife’s green thumb. Some of these seeds had been discarded by her laboratory because they were not suitable for the soil in Yeonsudeok. But she brought them home and provided them with a new living environment. She considered each seed to be precious and life-giving. She also took these vegetable seeds and planted them in a plantation field and in her laboratory. She hoped these plants would yield twofold so that the field size and labor required would be reduced by half. She envisioned the people of this mountainous region relishing the plentiful vegetables she cultivated.
However, just as vegetable farming was contingent on seasonal changes and climate fluctuations, her research on her vegetables also required time to adjust to these natural occurrences. She had to repeat the experiment countless times. It was not going to be easy to make the seeds cooperate with her plan, especially when there had already been thousands of years of agricultural experience and revolution in human history.
How would she feel about giving up her research? It’s been proved fruitless so far. Besides, there are so many happy families that live ordinary lives with ordinary occupations.
Jeong Jin Wu thought about the long and difficult path ahead of his wife as he succumbed to regret and disappointment.
Before they were married, he had never imagined that she would embark on this kind of fruitless journey.
4
One autumn day twenty years ago, Jeong Jin Wu prepared to present his senior thesis before his fellow students and respected professors. He worked on the paper during his fifth and final year as a law major and titled it “A Legal Study on Divorce in Human History.”
The topic was too broad for a short presentation. If he had used historical and sociological material to do an in-depth study on the topic, it would have been worthy of a multivolume book. But the hastily written essay for his department fell short of that. Jeong Jin Wu based his thesis on dialectical materialism applied to the concept of divorce, an approach that had not been explored by his predecessors. That was why his comrades from his dormitory agreed that thi
s paper was worthy of being presented and thought it would be well received as a university student’s senior thesis.
Jeong Jin Wu approached the podium with an air of pride and confidence. The students in the conference hall were mostly undergraduate and graduate students from the law school, along with some who had already graduated but maintained an interest in academic goings-on. There were also a number of students from other departments. Whenever a paper was presented at the university, the title, name of the presenter, and date appeared in the school newspaper and were posted on campus. Students were more inclined to attend a discussion on law than any other department presentations.
Yun Hee, a fellow law school student and Jeong Jin Wu’s friend from his hometown, entered the hall with an unfamiliar female student. Yun Hee’s nickname was “Bee Sting” for her sharp wit and critical remarks, and she inspired wary discomfort in her peers whenever she spoke. She sat in the front row with her friend and, arms crossed, smirked presumptuously at Jeong Jin Wu. Yun Hee was prepared to criticize and attack him for any minute flaw. Even if the presentation turned out well, she would find some way to criticize it. In contrast to Yun Hee, the unfamiliar female student was looking at Jeong Jin Wu with soft eyes, which drew his attention to her. Her warm eyes encouraged him, and after glancing at her one last time, he lowered his head and began reading from his paper.
“In the infancy of human civilization …”
Jeong Jin Wu paused for a moment to survey the conference hall and wait for the noise to subside. He continued with a stronger cadence. His deep voice resounded with authority.
“In the infancy of human civilization, primitive people lived in groups in tropical and subtropical jungles and caves. Fruits, edible plants, and hunting weak animals were important sources of food for survival. The Paleolithic Era can be divided into several periods. If we’re going to examine the origins of the division of labor, then we’re going to have to journey back to a period before the Paleolithic Era. Man evolved from higher animal species and began to walk on two legs. And he lived in this way for thousands of years before he discovered the use of a stick and a rock-ax.
“The first form of marriage that humanity managed during this era was a form of communal marriage. Because of the unpredictable nature of wild beasts and the limited amount of food, primitive people, who lacked a great deal of ethical judgment, needed to live in groups. Very much like the basic instinct of animals (to eat and survive), these people did not have a mind-set capable of determining their goals, and therefore, communal marriages were ethically natural for them. They did not feel the need to regulate and control their system of communal marriage. This type of marital system continued for some time.
“The type of man that advanced from these primitive stages discovered tools made of wood and rocks, fire, fishing, the invention of the bow and arrow, agriculture, etc. Then, man entered the Paleolithic Era. Man, who had once been a savage, developed the concepts of family and clan. Clans were originally established to be matriarchal. Since it was a polygamous society, or one that engaged in group/communal marriage, children followed only their mothers.
“There was no sense of distinguishing generation from generation or kinship through bloodlines. Violence, resentments, and other types of emotions slowly emerged from the frail consciousness of early man. The scope of this disorderly society was limited. Therefore, great progress developed from the subsequent matriarchal society. From this disorderly society, they decided to organize a generational system, in which the notion of siblings was born. Siblings got married to one another. This type of marriage is called ‘endogamy.’ This system started in the mid-Paleolithic Era and continued throughout the Neolithic Era.
“The production of the primitive family-economy advanced as population density increased, and polygamy continued to be the organizing principle of society. However, this caused women great difficulties as it produced economic problems. Women wanted to flee from social oppression. They wanted to show that they were productive on their own and thus began to establish ethical and sexual principles. The process of establishing this new social creed was not without its problems. There were efforts to get rid of old-fashioned traditions and customs and attempts to change the beliefs of the men who still considered polygamy to be beneficial. After several thousand years of battling polygamy, women were finally able to overthrow this outdated ideology and establish a new form of marriage that went beyond ‘family relations’ and marriage with other families: exogamy. Exogamy was based on one man and one woman outside the family unit. The man continued to wield authority, while the woman took care of the children. Although polygamy was not completely eliminated, exogamy was viewed as a ‘legal’ victory for women in the history of humanity.
“The process of changing from exogamy to monogamy happened from the mid-Neolithic Era to the Bronze Age. During this era, society developed into an agrarian and livestock-based system. Great agricultural advancements occurred, and the domestication of animals progressed. Men decided to abandon exogamy and adhere strictly to monogamy by taking a single woman to wife. From this point, the notions of kinship and a genealogical system were established. This was because man needed his children to inherit his possessions …”
Jeong Jin Wu wanted to know if the audience was listening attentively to his presentation, but he did not have the opportunity to steal a glance. So he stopped reading altogether and looked up. After a moment, he proceeded.
“The division of the maternal clan and the paternal clan, the development of products during the Iron Age, division of labor, surplus production, private consumption, material production, exchange, exploitation, class division …”
Jeong Jin Wu described the historical development of socioeconomic levels through the characteristics of a family based on monogamy. His objective in describing the historical development of marriage was to draw the interest of his law school colleagues and others sitting in the audience. However, he felt that some portions of the legal analysis contained his personal opinions on the matter.
“Nations were established on the basis of a hierarchical system that derived from class division. The resultant bureaucratic system served to increase the profits of personal gain. New sets of laws were created to benefit and increase profits for the exploiters who oppressed the workers. Nations, which supported the exploiters, and the national system of law, which was used as a weapon against the workers, were fundamentally different from the clan system of the primitive era that had maintained customs, traditions, and communalism.
“The ancient Sumer civilization in 1600 BC and the Babylonian civilization had laws that regulated people and marriages. They did not establish these laws with the objective of getting rid of prostitution or adultery but for the regulation of personal property that would be passed down according to genealogy. The accumulation of personal property in the family strengthened the man’s authority and subjugated the woman as a mere economic commodity. As a result, women were deprived of any political power and were enslaved by men.
“As man entered the feudal era, a married woman was considered the property of a man and was forced to be submissive to her husband. This allowed women to develop an awareness of their human emotions and human rights that was beneficial to them. In the Goryeo dynasty, the first legal codes were called ‘Sang jeong rye mun,’ and in the Joseon dynasty they were called ‘Gyeong guk dae jeon’ …”
Jeong Jin Wu took a sip of water to quench his dry mouth. The audience in the conference hall remained still and attentive. It seemed as though the audience members were entranced by Jeong Jin Wu’s academic essay.
Jeong Jin Wu looked at Bee Sting sitting in the front row. Yun Hee shifted her position in her seat and faced the podium with an expression of wonder. Her arrogant smirk had vanished from her face. She had always thought of Jeong Jin Wu as a good-looking but only mildly intelligent student and had doubted whether he would be able to deliver a worthy essay, but after listening to his comprehensi
ve research, she changed her opinion. In contrast, the unfamiliar female student sitting next to Yun Hee no longer gazed at Jeong Jin Wu with soft eyes but rather with a serious expression, stern and focused.
Jeong Jin Wu thought that Yun Hee and her friend were taking his presentation unnecessarily seriously. He fanned out the pages of his essay, proceeded again with an authoritative voice, and managed to return to the mental state of academia. Jeong Jin Wu’s topic was so specialized that he was not able to explore areas beyond marriage laws and funeral rites in history. He felt as if a white fog covered the podium, causing him to lose focus on his paper. The audience was traveling with Jeong Jin Wu through the long history of marriage. None of the heroes in his talk were alive, but they were the ones who had changed the face of history and society’s outlook on marriage.
As soon as Jeong Jin Wu finished reading from his essay, the audience applauded in sincere appreciation for his hard work in preparing this talk. He stepped down from the podium like a professional with experience giving talks at these types of colloquia. His heart beat rapidly, and he could not seem to contain his elation.
The audience members exited the conference hall like a herd of cattle.
Jeong Jin Wu was overwhelmed with joy and could not come down from his state of excitement. As he remained standing on the stage, the two women approached him. Yun Hee smiled brightly at Jeong Jin Wu.
“Congratulations on presenting your senior thesis,” said Yun Hee.
“Don’t spare me your criticisms. Hit me directly and quickly,” said Jeong Jin Wu.
“There’s nowhere to hit. I honestly learned something from your talk,” Yun Hee said. “Oh, I almost forgot to introduce you two. This is my comrade Han Eun Ok.”
Jeong Jin Wu greeted Eun Ok and gazed into her eyes.
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