광무 연간 북한 지역 여성의 호적 기재 양상

Abstract

This paper analyzed the characteristics of the practices of listing women's names in their family register in Hamkyung-do, Pyeongan-do Hwanghae-do and the North of Kangwon-do during the period from 1897 to 1905. The study areas were 18 counties north of the 38th parallel. As a result of examining the family registers in the northwestern parts of the Korean Peninsula during the Kwang Mu era, these regions were found to be drastically different from the southern and the central regions. In the northern parts of the Korean peninsula, few daughters had their names listed in their family registers. The gender ratios of South Pyongan-do and North Pyongan-do were 100: 3,543 and 100: 2,126 respectively. In other words, sons' names were 20 to 35 times more registered than daughters'. To make matters worse, daughters' real names were rarely, if ever, listed in their family registers. Eighty-eight percent of all sons had their names. However, only 9.8% of all daughters were given their names and more than half of them were registered as simple names such as “Kim Agi” or “Lee Agi”. In terms of naming, Pyongan-do and Hamgyeong-do were the most gender-discriminatory areas. In Pyongan-do and Hamkyung-do, there was no case where the names of daughters and granddaughters were listed in the family registers. Gender discrimination in the northern parts of the Korean peninsula was not limited to this. Pyeongan-do and Hamkyung-do had no female heads of households: they were intentionally excluded from the family registered. The new family register system enacted in 1896 was based on the principle that no household or no family member should be excluded in the family registers. In this regard, it can be assumed that all female heads had been excluded from the family register as a result of following the practices of the previous period. In other words, it was very unlikely that female household heads had been listed in the family registers in Hamkyung-do and Pyeongan-do since the late Joseon Dynasty. It was found that a small number of female household heads had been registered in their family registers in Hwanghae-do and the northern part of Gangwon-do. But they could not even register the names of their fathers and grandfathers. It was because women, with their husbands or sons dead, were shameful beings who had no purpose in their lives according to the Confucian ideas.