18-19세기 한국 소설에 나타난 여성의 상업 활동과 여성 儒商

Abstract

Korean traditional societies, in particular the Joseon Dynasty regarded basically commerce as a minor. Hence, relatively less attention was paid to merchants or commercial activities than China or Japan. Many novels, or commercial literary works had a main subject matter on a life and conflict of an aristocratic society so it is not easy to identify the advent of so-called a regular’ commercial story(Merchants Novels)’. However, since a novel is a genre dealing with human whole life, it was impossible to exclude completely merchants, one of 4 kinds of statuses. From the 10th century’s <Choi Chi Won> to the 17th century’s <Jusaengjeon>, we can witness an image of a ‘merchant’ who exists distinctly in the narrative world despite of a material level. Besides, in Chinese short stories after 18th century, various commercial activities and merchants appeared, reflecting a changing society. Commercial activities captured by novels in the Joseon Dynasty are mainly done by males and described as a means of living for the ruined status. In the recent fusion historical dramas, an image of a female trader is often ‘imagined’ with the scene of trading by a female representative of a commercial group equipped with knowledge and wealth with the nobility. However, it seems difficult for Joseon women having a trouble in escaping from a boudoir to participate in a commercial activity. We can imagine female commercial activities merely stayed at helping those of males or a daily livelihood of the lower class as a peddler at a market street. They only existed not as the foreground but as a background of a narrative. In the mean time, it is intriguing that several 18th-19th centuries’ novels depict female commercial activities in earnest. Chinese short stories enjoyed during such a period show a wife of a scholar(Sunbi), who becomes rich by direct funding and cornering of medicines, a wife of a middle-class man, who corners and manipulates a market price, and a female citizen who becomes a millionaire at Seoul by selling fruits and miscellaneous goods. They are all characters who participate in a commercial front for their individual money-making. Some classical narratives show a female merchant who relieves the poor through commercial activities and here an image of a female scholarly merchant(Rushang, 儒商) contributing to a society may be identified. Such an image of a female scholarly merchant is maximized in the 19th century’s Korean novel <Chobuin-jeon, 趙夫人傳>. This work embodies a noble woman who was reborn as a scholarly merchant of the social leadership through a process to overcome hardship and search for a method of self-strengthening in a transitional period of civilization. An image of Ms. Jo, who achieved a courteous village through implementing Hyangyak(鄕約) based on the wealth from commercial activities and a rich and powerful village through training soldiers, is a rare discovery in the traditional narrative.