The law may not enter the women’s apartments. A noble hiding himself in his wife’s rooms cannot be seized for any crime except that of rebellion. A man wishing to repair his roof must notify his neighbors, lest by any chance he should see any of their women. After the age of seven, boys and girls part company, and the girls are rigidly secluded, seeing none of the male sex except their fathers and brothers until the date of marriage, after which they can only see their own and their husband’s near male relations. Girl children, even among the very poor, are so successfully hidden away, that in somewhat extensive Korean journeys I never saw one girl who looked above the age of six, except hanging listlessly about in the women’s rooms, and the brightness which girl life contributes to social existence is unknown in the country. But I am far from saying that the women fret and groan under this system, or crave for the freedom which European women enjoy. Seclusion is the custom of centuries. Their idea of liberty is peril, and I quite believe that they think that they are closely guarded because they are valuable chattels. One intelligent woman, when I pressed her hard to say what they thought of our customs in the matter, replied, “We think that your husbands don’t care for you very much”! Concubinage is a recognized institution, but not a respected one. The wife or mother of a man not infrequently selects the concubine, who in many cases is looked upon by the wife as a proper appendage of her husband’s means or position, much as a carriage or a butler might be with us. The offspring in these cases are under a serious social stigma, and until lately have been excluded from some desirable positions. Legally the Korean is a strict monogamist, and even when a widower marries again, and there are children by the second marriage, those of the first wife retain special rights. There are no native schools for girls, and though women of the upper classes learn to read the native script, the number of Korean women who can read is estimated at two in a thousand. It appears that a philosophy largely imported from China, superstitions regarding dæmons, the education of men, illiteracy, a minimum of legal rights, and inexorable custom have combined to give woman as low a status in civilized Korea as in any of the barbarous countries in the world. Yet there is no doubt that the Korean woman, in addition to being a born _intrigante_, exercises a certain direct influence, especially as mother and mother-in-law, and in the arrangement of marriages.