Love and Marriage in Joseon — How Bonds Were Tied

Marriage in Joseon was the business of two households before it was the business of two people. Yet even within strict etiquette and the formalities of matchmaking, the feeling passing between one heart and another never vanished. If anything, within restrained form, affection bloomed all the more quietly.

The six rites of marriage

A traditional wedding proceeded through six rites: napchae, munmyeong, napgil, napjing, cheonggi, and chinyeong. Exchanging the birth-date document, choosing an auspicious day, sending gifts — this process showed how the two households respected each other and held the bond as weighty. A wedding was a ceremony in which two worlds were carefully joined into one.

The heart within the form

It was common to pledge a lifetime without even having seen each other's face, yet within that, husband and wife lived together and built affection. They conveyed their hearts by letter, endured hard times together, and learned each other's grain. Love was not only the first flutter but also something that grows by keeping close over long years.

The old belief in destined bonds

The old people saw a couple's meeting as a bond tied by heaven. As the saying goes, "even a brushing of sleeves is a bond" — they believed that every meeting between people had its own reason. This belief became the ground of a heart that treasures a relationship and tends it together.

The Past-Life Bond test borrows this old belief to lightly reflect the grain flowing between two people. The very time of comparing answers, laughing, and talking together may itself be a small rite that deepens the bonds of today a little more.