조선후기 양반 여성의 사회적 평판과 인정구조 재성찰

Abstract

This paper extensively examines the documentary materials of the Chosǒn era that described the expression “a wife's conduct does not go beyond the threshold/gyumun”, based on Liji, as a kind of literary cliché. By analyzing the reality of general understanding of women, it reexamined the literary texts, which were written by elite literati, regarding social presence, relationships, connections, and recognition structures of women in the Chosǒn era. It is true that during the Chosǒn period, the activity and presence of yangban women was mainly limited within the family, and the social network was narrower than that of men. However, women were recognized for their presence and value in the contemporary/historical period through language, attitude, sense, physicality, writing, social interaction, and political conduct. Male-writing on women of various statuses, such as the royal family, yangban, commoners, and ordinary people, socialized/historicized women’s values, and in some cases, women themselves proved themselves through writing. Women’s oral conversations, experiences, and messages have also been cited in men's literary texts. Nevertheless, limiting yangban women to the existence of women in kyumun (insede yangban family’s gate) again erased, minimized or excluded women’s values and presence that were recognized socially, and consequently acted as a kind of social ‘appartus’ that universally devalued women’s capabilities. Women in the Chosǒn era were not excluded from the social recognition structure, but were objectified. This, paradoxically, served as a potential and realistic engine to act as a social surveillance network for women in the Chosǒn era. The custom of writing/thinking, limiting women's virtues into the rules, served as a norm justifying social control over women's right to speak and act, thereby neutralizing or diluting women's presence. The record of women's life history written by male literati has resulted in weakening social position by reorganizing women into surrogate entities by entrusting the path of socialization/historization of women's existence to men. No one who was born as a human being and lived in society can become the secret of life and history. No existence, society, or institution can make a real human being a transparent shadow. At the same time, any idea, ideology, ethics, or moral idea that presents a vision for the direction and value of life to humans cannot be freed from the gaze and evaluation of reflection reconstructed in the course of history. It is a truth proven by diachronic history that the praiseworthy virtues of an era are sometimes reconsidered or abolished due to bitter criticism in the course of history. The contradictions and paradoxes of the reputation and recognition structure of women in the Chosǒn era are not limited to the specific period. This article was written as a resource-exploring study for a practical cultural grammar that coexists with minorities and sub-subjects. By using the problem consciousness, argumentation method, and results submitted in this study, it can be used as a basis for forming a reflective public sphere of modern humanities.