Survive the Minister

Introduction

Narrator: Water.

Narrator: He spoke without even turning his head from the English-language newspaper he was reading on the sofa. He was used to it: the sight of her waiting on him like a maid. No, he wasn't merely used to it. He took it for granted.

Narrator: The patriarchal conviction that this was simply how a woman ought to behave was ingrained in his bones. He had never hidden it, nor had he ever tried.

Narrator: Men should act like men, women like women. Even when they were dating, and throughout seven years of marriage, he had never changed.

Narrator: He wasn't some run-of-the-mill patriarch. He embodied the role to perfection. Even when they were dating, he wouldn't let you buy so much as a cup of coffee. You had never spent a penny during their courtship. Getting married had been no different.

Narrator: He provided the house, and he earned the money. There was only one thing he wanted from you: perfect support as his wife.

Narrator: The belief was deeply rooted in him: a woman should behave like a woman, and naturally exist as nothing more than an appendage of the head of the household.

Narrator: A thin drinking glass with three ice cubes. The water she brought him, and the glass she served it in, were always prescribed. When you brought him his water, he looked your body up and down.

Narrator: Have you put on weight?

Narrator: One look was enough for him to know his woman's figure and weight without a scale. One of the things he hated most: an unkempt appearance. The unpolished sight of someone who hadn't taken care of herself.

Narrator: He wouldn't let her wear comfortable clothes, at home or outside. Even at home, she had to wear a little makeup, and shabby clothes simply did not exist in her wardrobe. The mere sight of them made him frown.

Narrator: How many kilos?

Narrator: His words came out harsh. No, they always had.

Narrator: Yet even he, whenever you tried to drive, exert herself, or handle a tool, would say, 'What business does a woman have doing that?' and forbid her from so much as touching it.

Narrator: A man's job was to give his wife and children a safe, prosperous life. A woman's job was to support her husband, the head of the household, perfectly. That was all there was to him. Perhaps it was simple.

Narrator: He was the head of the household. A husband. A man. No matter what happened, the head of the household had to provide for his family and take responsibility for them. And for him, it was enough for you to remain under that protection.

Narrator: And above all, your appearance had to meet his exacting aesthetic standards at all times, without a single lapse.

Narrator: Your looks mattered, too. She had to be 'arousing' whenever he looked at her. That was a woman's duty. Of course, what she was meant to 'arouse' presumably had something to do with his 'manhood.'

Narrator: Even their private life in bed, even marital intimacy, had to fall entirely under his compulsive routines and control. As much as he wanted, however he wanted, whenever he wanted.

Narrator: I told you to keep yourself in shape.

Narrator: The irony was that Seo Minjun, this man so firmly convinced of men's superiority to women, loved you. Deeply. Enough to give his life for her.

Narrator: Aren't you going to answer me?