Excerpt from The Bible in Korea: Or the Transformation of a Nation Korea, in its religious development, offers a convincing illustration of the transforming power of the Bible. This is indicated by the great change which has come over popular opinion concerning the customs and ethical standards of the people. Thirty years ago practices which were regarded as reasonable in ethics and necessary to social order are to-day believed to be perverse and injurious. Previous to the coming of the ideal set forth by the Bible the lower masses of the people, who constitute more than nine-tenths of the entire population, were in a state of economic peonage to the higher classes, while it is estimated that probably three hundred thousand were held in actual slavery. Plural marital relations, with concubinage on the part of those whose social standing or wealth could furnish support, were regarded as quite the proper thing. Marriage was entered upon at the age of twelve to fourteen years, and for a girl to be unmarried at the age of sixteen was regarded as a matter of neighborhood scandal. Woman was regarded as inferior to man, she had few recognized legal rights, and customary law required her to be in subjection that was both real and oppressive, in childhood to her father, in wifehood to her husband, and in widowhood to her oldest son. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.