Session 48: Confucianism and Women in Late Chosŏn Korea

Organizer: Youngmin Kim, Bryn Mawr College

Chair: Mark Peterson, Brigham Young University

Discussant: JaHyun Kim Haboush, Columbia University

Keywords: women, Confucianism, Chosŏn, slavery, family registers, Neo-Confucianism, Korea.

This panel explores women in late Chosŏn Korea from a wide range of perspectives, from social history through literature to intellectual history. For those interested in pre-modern Korean intellectual and cultural history, the Chosŏn dynasty marks the ascendancy of Neo-Confucianism. Indeed, Korean society underwent significant changes that affected women as well as other members of society as Neo-Confucianism became rooted in society and culture during the late the Chosŏn dynasty. Despite the consensus of scholarly opinions concerning the general rubric of "Confucianization of the late Chosŏn dynasty," the multi-dimensional quality of late Chosŏn culture in general and women’s history in particular demands further investigation.

Taking the relationship between women and Confucianism as its central focus, this panel supposes that umbrella categories such as "Chosŏn women" and "Confucianism" should be more carefully used to appreciate fully the nuanced, multiple layers of late Chosŏn culture. Each of the four panelists looks beyond the blanket category of "Chosŏn women," focusing on specific female social formations—Michael J. Pettid focuses on upper class women, Milan Hejtmanek on female slaves, Ji-Young Jung on widows, and Youngmin Kim on female philosophers. Likewise, the panelists investigate Confucianism beyond a simplistic model of patriarchal family system. Taken together, this approach not only helps us restore the tremendous internal diversity of late Chosŏn women’s history, but also enhances our ability to appreciate what Confucianism meant to various populations in Chosŏn society.

Edifying the Confucian Woman: Didactic Literature for Upper-Class Women in Chosŏn Korea

Michael J. Pettid, State University of New York, Binghamton

With the establishment of the Chosŏn dynasty, ruling elites sought to create a state structured in and conforming to Neo-Confucian ideology. While there were numerous aspects to such a process, this paper will examine the efforts made to change the lifestyles of women, particularly of the upper classes, through didactic Neo-Confucian works. The invention of the han’gŭl script allowed educational works to reach a far broader audience and helped hasten the spread of Confucian mores among all levels of society. Nonetheless, it was not until the seventeenth century that the push to spread Confucian morality became heightened and aimed at even the lower classes.

The period after the Hideyoshi (1592–1598) and Manchu (1627, 1636) invasions witnessed an explosion in both the quantity of didactic works and the sophistication of educational techniques. Particularly, didactic works were created in both han’gŭl and mixed script texts, and oftentimes accompanied by illustrations. Through such educational methods, the affect of these texts was far broader than earlier times. Additionally, educational games were also created during this period, thus advancing the progress towards a thoroughly Neo-Confucian society.

These educational efforts resulted in, at least on the surface of late Chosŏn society, the transformation of the expectations for women—particularly those of the upper classes—to a Confucian ideal. The effectiveness of this edification process is supported by the lasting perception of the upper class Chosŏn period woman as being a "wise mother and good wife."

Two Female Confucian Philosophers in Late Chosŏn Korea

Youngmin Kim, Bryn Mawr College

Given that Confucianism has a reputation for its degrading attitude toward women, the term, "Female Confucian Philosopher" sounds like a contradiction in terms. If Confucianism is a women-oppressive ideology, it seems self-defeating for a woman to be a Confucian philosopher. The fact that female Confucian philosophers existed in the late Chosŏn period suggests that the relationship between Confucianism and women in this period is much more complex and multi-dimensional than assumed. This paper aims to explore the significance of Neo-Confucian philosophy in late Chosŏn female intellectuals’ lives through the study of two female Confucian philosophers, Im Yunchitang (1721–1793) and Kang Chongiltang (1772–1832).

With the critical awareness that the term "Confucianism" in the study of women’s history has been rather loosely used, this paper starts with a general inquiry: What is Confucianism? More specifically, what characterizes Confucianism in the late Chosŏn period? I proceed by asking what elements of Confucianism were taken up by female intellectuals, how these intellectuals employed them to forge their self-understanding, how they reinterpreted Neo-Confucian philosophy in pursuing their interests in social relationships, and how female Confucians in this period differed from those of earlier periods. In addition, the significance of the hair-splitting ritual systems based on kinship roles, among other things, will be reexamined and reevaluated in light of Neo-Confucian metaphysics. By addressing and exploring these issues, I hope to redefine the relationship between female intellectuals and Neo-Confucianism in late Chosŏn so that the rich texture of late Chosŏn intellectual history can be more fully appreciated.

Devalued Bodies, Revalued Status: The Passage of Female Slaves to the Commoner Class in Late Chosŏn Korea

Milan Hejtmanek, University of Pennsylvania

The abolition of private slavery in 1894 marked the legal conclusion to a massive social transformation that had begun in the early eighteenth century. As chattel property, members of the slave or nobi class could be bought, sold, bequeathed, and inherited. Among their owners were leading Confucian thinkers and institutions. After the seventeenth century, an expansion of the nobi class led to a decline in its marginal productivity, and a subsequent increase in tenant farming and the use of hired labor. By the late nineteenth century the possession of household slaves made little economic sense for those requiring agricultural labor.

The transition to commoner status assumed special import for female nobi, since the economic place of male and female slaves in Chosŏn Korea was distinct. Through child bearing, women in the nobi class were an important means of reproduction of their masters’ wealth, and their lives were shaped by the economic interests of their owners. Increasingly from the eighteenth century female nobi were able to find their way into the commoner class, thereby shedding themselves of the burden of producing owned bodies for their masters.

This study makes use of contemporary sôngnihak treatises, diaries, legal compilations, household guides, census registers, and literary collections to examine the process by which slave women transformed themselves into commoners and how the this change was interpreted in light of existing Neo-Confucian thought.

Widows’ Position and Agency in Late Chosŏn Korea

Ji-Young Jung, Ewha Woman’s University

This paper examines the ways in which patriarchal order strengthened and expanded in the 17–18th century Chosŏn by tracing changes in widows’ status in family registers. While examining the strengthening patriarchal order, this paper also describes the agency of survival of widows in the patriarchal society. According to the household registers of Tansong County, Kyoungsang Province from 1678 to 1789—widows were recorded as the heads of their family in the seventeenth century, but were recorded as mothers of their sons in the eighteenth century. This change in widows’ status in family registers seems to be the product of a gender-segregating policy. The significance of the change is that it paved the way for the Neo-Confucian order to expand even to the lower strata of the society.

With this change, a widow was recognized in her family and society only as the mother of her son losing her subject position as a woman whose husband died. Under these circumstances, widows of upper class were not allowed to remarry. Although widows of lower class could still remarry, they only married men of a lower social position than their own. While widows of different social positions had different options, the options became more and more limited with the strengthening patriarchal order. Even though the Neo-Confucian practice was the culture of the upper class in Chosŏn Korea, the strong patriarchal order based on Neo-Confucianism limited the choices of women of all classes.