‘첩’의 인정투쟁-근대계몽기 매체를 통해 본 ‘첩’ 재현과 그 운동성

Abstract

This study examines the existence of a 'secondary wife' (a concubine) within the immoral sexual customs, such as early marriage, forced marriage, human trafficking, adultery, and scandalous murdercases, in the era of Modern Enlightenment in Korea. The emphasis in this paper is on the typical representations of a 'secondary wife' the experiences of people who lived as a 'secondary wife'; and the structure of the 'secondary wife' discourse at that time. Indoing so, the purpose of this study is to explorethe historical meanings of representative images of 'secondary wife'lower class women in the era of Modern Enlightenment. Typical images of a 'secondary wife' in the media were divided generally into two ways. One is the extreme and binary division of good and bad woman, and the other is critical satire about the life of the government officials with their 'secondary wife'. Many women who had ever been a 'secondary wife' played very active part in various social movements including educational work, foundation of women's society, and National Debt Repayment Movement. Among them, Kim Seok-Ja(김석자) and Lee Il-Jeong(이일정), who devoted themselves to the enlightenment movement, are discussed in this paper. The 'secondary wife' discourse argues an abolition of the 'secondary wife' system. However, it mainly criticizes the immorality of men themselves and blames vanity and immorality of the 'secondary wives', not the fundamental patriarchal system. Accordingly, it promotes social hatred toward'secondary wife', marking with 'Premodernity' and 'illegality'.