- Author: Kwon, Hee-Jung
- Title: A History of Unwed Motherhood in the Modern Era
- Language: Korean
- Journal: Korean Journal of Oral History 5, 2: 37-80
- Publication Year: 2014
- Publisher: Korean Oral History Association
■ Abstract In premodern society, unwed mothers and their children were stigmatized. However, the women who gave birth out of marriage were still regarded as mothers. In modern society, as marriage based on monogamy was institutionalized and the idea of the middle-class family was popularized, the status of women who give birth out of marriage was transferred from the category of mothers to that of unfortunate women. In this study, the history of unwed motherhood is traced by analyzing interview records in newspapers, counseling notes written by counselors of Holt Children’s Services, and government documents, among other sources. First, I examine how the body of unwed mothers came to be transferred from the category of mothers to that of fallen women, regarded as someone who needs to be rehabilitated as the social discourses started to idealize monogamous marriage and the middle-class family. In addition, I will discuss how the modern knowledge of social welfare, which justified unwed mothers giving up their babies in the Baby Scoop Era, was introduced to Korean society in the 1960s and became institutionalized in the 1970s. As a result, the number of unwed mothers giving up their babies for adoption reached its peak in the 1980s when the capitalistic economy was fully developed and the idea of the modern middle-class family became prevalent. Finally, I will argue that the experiences of unwed motherhood need to be rewritten as part of the history of motherhood in the modern era.
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