고려·원간 ‘交婚’ 법제의 충돌

Abstract

In the latter half of the 13th century and the early half of the 14th century, the Goryeo(高麗) government issued many orders regarding social order and class stabilization, especially in response to the Yuan(元) imperial government’s attempt to impose Yuan law upon Goryeo’s internal situations, and to the Goryeo civilians’ attempt to rely upon Yuan imperial law to change their own class designations as well. The Goryeo government had to shut down legal processes initiated by Goryeo civilians who tried to appeal to Yuan law, and had to issue orders banning low-born people from being granted the commoner position. At the same time, also reinforced was the principle of “Cheonja Su’mo(賤者隨母),” a practice of establishing one’s social class as a lowborn based upon the mother’s class, and inter-class marriages between commoners and the lowborn were banned altogether. In the early 1270s, a man named Jo Seok-Gi appealed to a Mongol Darugachi figure for the matter of being granted the commoner position. The Mongol official tried to make him(or his offspring) a commoner as requested, by using Yuan law, yet the Goryeo government refused such a ruling and stopped the legal process. Considering the fact that this case was later mentioned as a “precedence” in 1299 when a Mongol official named Gorgis tried to reverse the Goryeo traditional law of condemning the offspring of inter-class marriages to a lowborn status, and that around the late 1260s and early 1270s Yuan imperial legal clauses regarding the social status of the offspring from inter-class marriage were enacted and promulgated, we can assume that the Jo Seok-Gi case was a matter pertaining to inter-class marriages and the social status of their offspring. From this case, we can see that the legal conflicts and clashes between Goryeo and Yuan over matters of this nature had already begun and existed in the early 1270s. During the reign of King Chung’ryeol-wang(忠烈王), many orders to ban “transfers between social classes” were issued. Considering the fact that cross-class relationships, including inter-class marriages, were most likely to produce an entire generation of beings whose social designation would cause a controversy before being settled, and the fact that when these particular orders such as banning all governmental and civilian Nobi servants from being released or reinforcing the ‘Cheonja Su’mo’ principle were being issued, Yuan was actually accelerating its own task of finalizing the legal details regarding this particular area, as well, we can see these orders were not unrelated to the issue of inter-class marriages and the social status of their offspring. The Goryeo government was indeed trying hard to prevent any more happenings such as the Jo Seok-Gi case of the early 1270s. In addition, during the reign of King Chungsuk-wang(忠肅王), a ban on specific cases of inter-class marriages was established. Such a ban on inter-class marriage had already been suggested and proposed during King Chung’ryeol-wang’s reign, but it was never set in motion. Then in the early 1320s, Yuan finally proclaimed a comprehensive law code(1323), tried to alter the traditions and conventions of Goryeo(1323 and 1324), and went on to re-issue orders banning marriages deceitfully arranged between a lowborn male and a commoner female(1330s). It seems that King Chungsuk-wang had no choice in 1325 but to order a ban on inter-class marriages. He particularly banned male Nobi servants disguising themselves as Namban(南班) figures from deceitfully marrying civilian females, in order to prevent more Yuan laws from being imposed upon Goryeo situations.