방귀쟁이 며느리 한국 옛날이야기

What does “chinjeong” mean in Korean?

Korean has two separate words for the two households a married woman belongs to. 시댁 is her husband’s parents' home; 친정 is the one she came from. The split carries history: traditionally she left the first for the second, so 친정에 간다 means going back to visit her own parents, and being sent back to her 친정 for good once amounted to divorce.

That is exactly the threat in this folk tale. The daughter-in-law’s farts shake the house down, and her father-in-law sets off to return her to her 친정 — until she uses them to knock pears out of a tree and earns her place back. Companion terms: 친정엄마 (a woman’s own mother), 시어머니 (her mother-in-law), 며느리 (daughter-in-law), the role the story is named for.