‘만들어진 전통’으로서의 同姓同本禁婚制와 식민정치

Abstract

In dealing with the case of the Korean family law revision by the Japanese colonial government and Korea's reaction to it, I analyzed how the ban on same-surname-same- origin marriage could be recognized as Korea's 'fine custom' during the Japanese colonial period. This ban became applicable to all Korean people, regardless of their status under the newly modernized colonial law system. The Colonial Government, however, began to carry forward an amendment to this ban from the 1920s onwards. Though claiming to prevent legal confusion caused by the ban on same-surname-same-origin marriage, such as a rise in the number of de facto marriages and illegitimate children, the ultimate goal of this amendment was to introduce the Japanese family system to Korea thus changing the Korean family system through the colonial power's assimilation policy. This trial caused resistance among Koreans who regarded the amendment of the ban as a gateway into the established Japanese practice of 'marriage to close relatives'. Thanks to the rapidly growing interest and research into eugenics and genetics, marriage between close relatives was already being universally criticized as the cause of 'inferior descendants'. Many Koreans thought their marriage laws were superior to the Japanese marriage system and 'fine custom'. Other Koreans, pursuing reform of the Korean traditional family, criticized the ban as a 'bad custom' and affirmed the Japanese amendment to the law. However, their voice was always that of a very small minority during a time of rising national resistance. Despite the rising dissidence, in 1939 the colonial government enforced the Japanese family system-including, the adopted son-in-law system and the obligation for Korean people to change their names to Japanese ones. Through this course of action, the colonial power actually gave up revision of the ban and decided to maintain Korea's 'fine custom'. By doing this the colonial government's intention was to put down the Korean dissidents who wanted to prevent Naeseon Ilche-the Japanese assimilation policy. Ironically, by accepting Korea's ban on the same-surname-same- origin law, the Japanese cultural conquest could be completed. With the acceptance of the ban, the Korean traditional marriage law became a 'fine custom' and a buffer to reduce national animosity toward the assimilation policy. The appearance of this ban as a 'national tradition' was due not only to the Chosŏn dynasty's patriarchal history, but also to the effect of colonial politics at a point where colonialism, nationalism and modernism intersected.