''Of course my husband beats me,'' said Chong Chin Suk, 56, who runs the village store. ''But it was my fault because I scolded him.''

''Maybe there are some cases where it's just the man's fault,'' added Mrs. Chong, a small, plump grandmother who used a broom of twigs to sweep the dirt in front of her shop. ''But ultimately the woman is to blame, because if she won't argue with her husband, he probably won't beat her.''

Mrs. Chong said she took her beatings quietly, and she counseled her married daughter to do the same.

''I told my daughter not to fight back,'' she said. ''I told her, 'If he hits you, just sit back and take it.' '' But in fact, Mrs. Chong added, her daughter never took that advice, and when she is hit by her husband she slugs right back -- ''like this,'' Mrs. Chong explained, shadow boxing as if she were in the ring.

Several other women, mostly younger ones, also recounted with relish how they would hit back; as they see it, fistfights are almost a sign of social progress. Yet villagers all said that beating was wrong, and that they would look down on a man who beats his wife as well as on the woman who is beaten.

''When my husband beat me, I would lie about the bruises, of course,'' said Park Kum Ok, 70, a rail-thin woman, who said her husband used to drink too much and ''go wild,'' beating her once or twice a month.

Kang Kyong Sun, a 40-year-old housewife, nodded at that and added: ''If I fight with my husband, I don't want the neighbors to know, because it's a disgrace. If you get bruised by your husband, you never tell the truth. You say you bumped into a tree, or you fell, or whatever.''