[KS] bunch of questions: marriage/divorce & IDs (colonial period)

[Henny Savenije]

As for the first question, maybe I can answer that. Napoleon tried to 
enforce a civil registration system in the Europe he conquered, since 
in most countries the churches kept the baptismal, marriage and death 
records but only the state recognized churches, so if you would for 
instance marry in a baptist church, which was not a state recognized 
church, you were not married.

Priests would write down names as they heard them which could, 
depending on the dialect of the priest and the parishers, greatly 
vary and yes, identities were fluid, you were born on a certain 
farmhouse which had a certain name? That was your surname, you moved 
to a farm with a different name? So did your name. People often 
forgot with what kind of names were baptized and changed it at will 
(well, they left a few out or added one)

Napoleon wanted the government to register that and municipalities 
(mairies as they were initially called with the French word) were set 
up, as the lowest governmental unit, provinces (Departement, also 
French) as the unit to supervise the municipalities and finally the 
government to supervise the provinces, existing church records had to 
be handed over to the municipalities and from that moment on the 
civil registration was born.

After Napoleon was defeated, some countries, Belgium, Holland, 
France, and maybe others kept that system in place. Germany abandoned 
the system only to be reinstated a 100 years later. The churches did 
the registrations again with all the difficulties for the government 
to control and easy to change identities again.

So, yes, identities in Germany were much more fluid in Germany than 
in the countries which kept the Napoleonic system. There the names 
stuck as they were written down at the moment you were born. Well, to 
an extent, of course civil servants sometimes made mistakes but then 
again, that mistake was to be your future identity.

At 05:42 PM 1/3/2014 Friday -0800, you wrote:
>Dear All:
>
>I hope it is okay to just ask a buch of questions. These are issues
>that could likely be answered when finding the right kind of
>publications. Just that I am not quite sure where to look ... maybe
>anthropological literature?
>
>(1) Passports and other ID documents:
>My impression thus far is that IN EUROPE and the U.S. passports and IDs
>where much less important during the first half of the 20th century,
>specifically before 1939, than they were after World War II. To clarify
>what I mean: it seems that it was extremely easy to e.g. change one's
>name, to change entire identities, carry several names at the same
>time, several nationalities also. It further seems that in peaceful
>times neither European nor U.S. government offices where that much
>interested in the real "historic" identities of people living in their
>national territories. I say this as I came across more and more cases
>where it had been evident to the authorities that the historical
>identity given in a person's passport did not match up with the actual
>person, and this had no consequences of any sort. One explanation is to
>argue that the technical means of today's total surveillance society
>where simply not there. The other, partial explanation would be that
>there was a different mindset at work where "identities" like personal
>names and nationalities where far more fluid than they are today. If I
>"reactivate" my almost lost childhood memories and recall conversations
>with family or neighbors who where born in the 1880s to early 1900s,
>then I would certainly favor this second explanation. They quite
>"naturally" talked about changing all sorts of identities as
>needed--hard for me to summarize this in a sentence or two. (That is
>certainly a very objective statement.) Is the life-long invisible data
>string of name, nationality, and fingerprints directly related with the
>development of nation-states? It would in that case be a real
>latecomer. I would be interested in any information or thoughts on this
>issue, both for the West and for East Asia.
>
>(2) Marriages & Divorces:
>When was something like a "divorce" being introduced in Korea--I mean
>in the sense that it would be recorded with some administrative
>'paperwork' with a public office? How where divorces handled during the
>colonial period? That is, would a man (my focus is of the men here) be
>able to remarry with any sort of traditional marriage ceremony without
>any sort of official paperwork under Japanese rule? I am sure there is
>literature out there on this issue, probably a lot, I just don't know
>it. Any suggestions what to read (for a good overview).
>
>(3) Jap. colonial diplomatic and Secret Police records:
>Has anyone information if Japanese colonial diplomatic and Secret
>Police records were burned 1945 (in Korea) before Soviet and American
>troops came? I noticed that records about e.g. Korean political
>activities on the peninsular but also in Manchuria and China are
>relatively extensive and detailed while others regarding Koreans in the
>U.S. and Europe seem so poor that I can hardly imagine we now have all
>there was. (To be sure, I do NOT have any sort of clear overview on
>this--it is all fragmentary, and therefore also a question based on
>fragmentary knowledge.) There should be more than a hundred times the
>amount of records that we now see in the archives, that also becomes
>evident when going through e.g. British or German records in the
>Foreign Offices of the time and see the references to Jap. sources. Any
>thoughts or information?
>
>
>Thank you!
>Frank

                  _   _
                 (o) (o)
      oOOO----(_)----OOOo---
Henny (Lee Hae Kang)
-----------------------------
http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr Portal to all my sites
http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr (in English) Feel free 
to discover Korea with Hendrick Hamel (1653-1666)
http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/indexk2.htm In Korean
http://www.hendrick-hamel.henny-savenije.pe.kr/Dutch In Dutch
http://www.vos.henny-savenije.pe.kr Frits Vos Article about Witsen 
and Eibokken and his first Korean-Dutch dictionary
http://www.cartography.henny-savenije.pe.kr (in English) Korea 
through Western Cartographic eyes
http://www.hwasong.henny-savenije.pe.kr Hwasong the fortress in Suwon
http://www.oldKorea.henny-savenije.pe.kr Old Korea in pictures
http://www.british.henny-savenije.pe.kr A British encounter in Pusan (1797)
http://www.henny-savenije.com/tng/ Genealogy
http://www.henny-savenije.pe.kr/phorum Bulletin board for Korean studies


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