조선 후기 이모에 대한 관계 인식과 감성 —남성지식인 기록을 중심으로

Abstract

This study aims to examine the relations, perceptions, and emotions of maternal aunts and to reveal their status and meaning as relatives based on their writings on the maternal aunts in the late Joseon Dynasty. In terms of maternal relatives, the scope of recognition as relatives was narrower than that of paternal relatives, and the burden on the practice of righteousness was also lighter. Maternal aunts move from one mother’s relative to another due to marriage, but because they are mother’s sisters, they are intimately recognized based on affection. In the record of maternal aunts, the motherhood of maternal aunts is a nostalgia and a sensitivity to the mother rather than an object to be rewarded as a child. Due to the maternal aunts’ motherhood, the writer remembers her life with human gaze and unpleasant feelings, instead of making the meaning of maternal aunts’ hard lives based on norms. This is possible because maternal aunts are in a relative position that also enables emotional understanding and empathy. But maternal aunts are intimate, but relatives of different surnames. The dual identity of maternal aunts shows the female experience in raw form. Because of the distance between the maternal aunts, strong sisterhoods, help for parents, conflicts with her husband’s family members, aspiration for the outside world, and fear of knowing the writing could be described. Maternal aunts were not regarded as relatives who could directly influence them. This shows that maternal aunts are consumed as images within the hierarchy of relatives and exist at the point where they have no power.