Practicing Motherhood and Forming Matrilineal Solidarity: A Counter-cultural Response to the Patrilineal Confucian Family in the Works of Park Wansuh (1931–2011)

Abstract

This paper analyzes four fictional works by Park Wansuh (1931–2011) that thematize the issue of son preference and sex-selective abortion against the background of the recent decriminalization of abortion. Prior to 2021, although abortion was illegal in Korea it was widely practiced, providing the environment in which sex-selective abortion could also be accessed. However, in arguing for women's reproductive rights, feminists have largely relied on Western discourse without considering the implications of this local practice that allowed women the choice without the legal rights. As shown in Park's works, in reality, both abortion and sex-selective abortion served the modernization of the patrilineal Confucian family as it faced the normativization of the monogamous relationship. In penalizing unmarried pregnant women and sonless married women, the popular religious practice of Confucian patriarchy overrode the illegality of abortion and made it culturally acceptable. Against this practice, and also against feminist discourse, Park's works argue for women's right to choose to become mothers regardless of marital status or sex of the fetus. Park's argument is all the more informative for local practice as it does not rely on the Christian narrative of life but on the virtuous motherhood of Confucian practice and on her relationship with her mother-in-law, who was not Christian but whose death eventually led Park to becoming a Catholic.