Renaissance Nun vs. Korean Gisaeng : Chastity and Female Celibacy in Measure for Measure and "Chun-hyang Jeon"

This study is a comparative exploration of the eastern and western ideologies of chastity as reflected in the literatures of two distant societies: Renaissance England and 19th-century Korea. Despite the chronological and geographical distances between them, Renaissance England and nineteenth-century Korea share many significant socio-historical similarities, as both were societies in transition from the medieval to the modern world. The cultural parallelism among the two societies provides us with a helpful comparative context.¹ The two heroines of this study, Isabella in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and Chun-hyang in the famous Korean narrative, "Chun-hyang Jeon,"² both belong to the legitimate groups of single women in their respective societies where other women were restrained under the surveillance of the institution of marriage. Isabella, a Catholic nun, and Chun-hyang, a gisaeng (the Korean female courtesan/entertainer), both enjoy the institutional rights of remaining unmarried; however, both are threatened with having to yield to the illicit desire of a higher male authority: Isabella facing the death of her brother; and Chun-hyang facing her own. Thus, each faces a dilemma of her own: whether Isabella must disavow her religious pledge to honor her moral duty, and whether Chun-hyang must ignore her nuptial vow to obey her class role. As the stories move toward a happy ending, they are then driven to embrace the visions of "good" life in matrimony that their respective societies seemingly promise them as an alternative. Thus emerges a question: with their legal rights of celibacy, why do they, Isabella the nun and Chun-hyang the gisaeng, still have to suffer in order to maintain the ideal of chastity? This paper searches for a possible answer to this question, which involves the rather frustrating conclusion that woman in patriarchal society, single, married, or widowed, can hardly enjoy full sexual autonomy.

A Brief Comparison between the Renaissance Nun and the Korean Gisaeng

Renaissance nuns and Korean gisaeng differ from each other in many ways. First and foremost, while the nunnery system fostered one particular group of consecrated and cloistered virgins, the gisaeng institution produced a female community of total sexual openness, i.e., the maximum utilization of female sexuality. Moreover, the Renaissance nunnery system was established on religious ideals by those who (theoretically, at least) sought a life of spiritual perfection; in contrast, the gisaeng institution, especially that of Joseon Dynasty, emerged out of political necessity and developed alongside the government's sexual politics.³ Renaissance nuns and Korean gisaeng also differ in their duties and vocation. Nuns were religious devotees, so most of their monastic life was spent in pious meditation through regular services, sermons, prayers, hymns, etc. They also received some education in reading and writing necessary for their spiritual enhancement, but much of their education stressed the importance of maintaining their chastity, as virginal perfection was the highest goal. On the other hand, the gisaeng's vocation was to accompany and entertain the aristocratic men at court revelries and government parties, and sometimes to have sexual relations with the officials and patrons whom they served. Accordingly, their educators often emphasized as their primary concern not chastity but submission, i.e., a complete obedience to the superior's sexual demands. They were then trained in music and dance, in social manners, and even in literature in order to be able to converse with their yangban (Korean aristocracy) partners. Another difference between Renaissance nuns and Korean gisaeng lies in their social origin: nuns were mostly from upper and upper-middle classes, some from the middling class, but hardly any from lower class because of the dowry required.⁴ By contrast, Korean gisaeng were selected almost exclusively from a lower social class, and themselves belonged to the lowest class. There were some special occasions in which aristocratic ladies...