19세기 중반 호구단자에 기재된 노비명의 검토

Abstract

It was an expected phenomena that the official household registration system was slowly disintegrating in the 19th century Korea, but historians weren't sure about the extent of it's disintegration. Using recently founded historical documents, the writer tried to conduct a comparative study of slave names using household registration paper and private diary written by yangban class woman in the middle of nineteen century. The writer found out that none of the slave name in diary coincided with the names in household registration paper which were produced at that same period by the same family. This was a totally unexpected result as historians predicted at least 30~40% of slave names represented in household registers(hojeok) were real slaves. Thus this case shows that the extent of disintegration of household registration system in the 19th century Korea was seriously progressing, casting doubt on the proposition that household registers were trustable documents. Moreover, historians speculated that the slave names written with age were the real slaves, whereas slaves with no age submitted were forged ones. But this research shows that the slaves with age written, were also forged ones. Lastly, latest studies asserted that the number of slaves in Korea were slowly diminishing, which implied the dissolution of slavery system in Joseon. But 31~43 slaves names found in the documents produced by the ordinary yangban class indicates that slavery was still stronghold in the 19th century Korea. Thus author proposes that more detailed researches on these matters should be carried out before reaching any conclusion.