조선시대 첩에 대한 포섭과 배제의 장치들 -법전류의 첩 관련 규정 분석을 중심으로-

Abstract

This paper, focusing on Code of the Great Ming, examines how the ranks of wife/concubine were constructed within the formal regulation of Chosǒn by classifying the ways in which “wife/ concubine,” “wife,” and “concubine” were used separately in legal provisions. Especially, it focuses on the provisions regarding crimes such as beating and adultery, and the punishment of the related criminals. The provisions that discuss wife and concubine together are about cases of their relationships of the husband to the nation, of the husbands’ absolute authority and ownership over these women, and of their relationship to the venerable elders such as the husband’s parents. The provisions that discuss wife and concubine separately are about the cases of the husband’s beating, of these women’s relationship to the husband’s relatives, of their relationship to their children, and of protecting the wife’s rights. In those cases, the punishment of the concubines were aggravated or reduced in a range of “grade 1” to “grade 3” compared to the wife. These grades showed the differences in who were in conflict with the wife/ concubine. Provisions on concubine were equipped elaborately and in detail throughout the matters of the husband’s social position, the social position of wife/concubine, the status of concubine and her position within the family, the concubine’s right to succession of property, ancestor worship ceremony, adoption, and penal code. The existence of concubine had an ambiguous position within the family relations of Chosǒn as it was neither fully included nor fully excluded. Through the regulations on concubine, the hierarchy of family members was minutely established. Concubines were not under simple discrimination, they became a “medium” through which family and social hierarchy in Chosǒn were firmly established and operated.