18세기 慶尙道 丹城縣의 改貫實態와 특징

Abstract

The 18th century witnessed a major change in the family clan system in Korea; namely, there occurred a rapid trend for having a family name with the 18th century as a starting point. In the process, in which numerous classes without their own family name got to have a new family name, the family clan system of the Joseon Dynasty came to be faced with changes from various aspects. One of the major changes is the very progression of the family clan change. ‘Gaegwan’means changing one’s own family clan to other one with the family name left as it is. As a result of taking note of the issue about how the family clan change was in progress around the former half of the 18th century, this study could confirm that the family clan change was made led by those who belonged to the lower-middle classes hierarchically. Such an aspect slightly differed from the tendency for the family clan change made before the 18th century. In other words, the trend for a family clan change in the former half of the 18th century took an different aspect from the trend for a family clan until the early days of the Joseon Dynasty when mainly the yangban (the gentry) changed a family clan in order to get a superior one. However, there is also the same tendency in that even the lower-middle classes who made a family clan change in the 18th century tended to reject a rare family clan, i.e. scarcity family clan. There came up a phenomenon of some family clans’ transformation into an illustrious family clan after the 18th century at Danseong-hyeon; hereupon, this study thinks that the tendency to evade the scarcity family clan in the process of a family clan change led by the lower-middle classes at that period might serve as a contributor to the formation of an illustrious family clan.