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Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies

PARK Hee-jinKyungpook National University

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Influences of the Yangban’s Age atMarriage and Ban on Remarriage on

Childbirth in Choson society

Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies. Vol. 8, No. 1ⓒ 2008 Academy of East Asia Studies. pp.1-15

ABSTRACT

Choson’s social customs concerning marriage and childbirth are known to have included early

marriage, a preference for sons, and a ban on female remarriage. This study estimated the patterns

of marriage and age at marriage in Choson society, and the factors that affected changes in net

reproduction. While women’s age at marriage was generally stable during the 15th-19th centuries,

this began to change from the 20th century onwards. Meanwhile, men’s age at marriage exhibited

a tendency to continuously decrease. Moreover, men’s age at marriage was also found to be

affected by the adult mortality rate and continuously increased after the 18th century. Choson’s

yangban adopted the strategy of early marriage to remedy this situation and ensure the

continuation of their lineages.

Keywords: Choson, marriage, childbirth, reproduction, yangban

I. IntroductionVarious methods were employed to achieve population and birth control in pre-modern societies before the population was regulated through contraceptivemethods. With the notable exception of France, no correlation has been foundbetween the infant mortality rate and the marital fertility rate in any Europeannation. This would seem to indicate that contraceptive methods were rarelyemployed after marriage to achieve population and birth control. Rather, Europecontrolled the birthrate through marriage customs such as those related to age atmarriage or the celibacy ratio.1 Meanwhile, population control methods afterchildbirth, such as infanticide, were more common in countries in China andJapan than attempts to control fertility through such practices as age at marriage.However, the influence of the female’s age at marriage on fertility naturally variedby area and period. In this regard, while fertility in all of pre-modern Europe andKorea after the 1950s was influenced by age at marriage, the impact of this practicevaried from region to region in the case of Japan. For its part, traditional Chinaeschewed all attempts to achieve population control by regulating the age atmarriage. Thus, leaving aside physiological factors such as breastfeeding and thefrequency of sexual intercourse, the argument can easily be made that fertility ratesin traditional societies were determined by tacit social norms and customs before orafter marriage and childbirth.

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Influences of the Yangban’s Age at Marriage and Ban on Remarriage on Childbirth in Choson society

PARK Hee-jinKyungpook National University

Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies. Vol.8, No.1.� 2008 Academy of East Asian Studies. pp.1-15

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PARK Hee-jin

1 Van de Walle 1983:201-223

Choson’s social customs concerning marriage and childbirth are known tohave included early marriage, a preference for sons, and a ban on femaleremarriage. Previous studies on Choson’s social customs have shown that duringlate Choson, it was regarded as the duty of the head of every family to producemale heirs that would be responsible for not only ensuring the continuation of thefamily line, but also for performing family rituals. The head of a family thus neededto marry at an early age and produce a son who would perform these rites. In thisregard, the general perception at that time was that the more children one had, thebetter it was for the family. Moreover, the lack of any documents or oral traditionsrelated to the practice of infanticide during the Choson period suggests thatinfanticide was not a general method of population control at that time.

Having established the fact that Choson society looked favorably uponmultiple births, the question thus becomes that of whether any population controlmethods existed at all during this period. To this end, this study undertakes thetask of estimating how such factors as age at marriage and the ban on femaleremarriage affected childbirth during the Choson era.

This undertaking is to be achieved by a perusal of records related to privatelife at that time, including haengjang[bibliographies of the deceased], yonbo[personal chronicles], and chimyong[burial records], as well as other data such aschokpo[family genealogies] and honso[marriage letters]. With this in mind, areview of the relevant data is presented in Section II. This is followed thereafter byan analysis of age at marriage in Section III and of the ban on female remarriage inSection IV. Finally, the impact of age at marriage and the ban on remarriage on netreproduction is examined at length in Section V.

II. DataThe data used to conduct the study of yangban marriages and births included munjip[personal anthologie] and chokpo. The munjip compiled during the Choson periodwere anthologies containing the literary writings of a particular individual. Thesewere usually collected after the person’s death by his students or descendents, andcompiled in the following order: Preface, Table of Contents, Main Text, Appendix,and Epilogue. While the preface was naturally placed at the beginning of the work,the table of contents constituted a convenient list with which to preview the maintext. Sometimes this consisted of a list of all the contents found in every volume onone single page, while in other instances a separate table of contents was preparedon the first page of each volume. The main text was organized in the followingorder: chuso[memorials], si[verse], so[writings], so[personal preface], ki[personalrecords], cham[admonition], myong[inscriptions], aesa[lamentations], chemun[memorials for the deceased], and chijang[personal chronicles for the deceased].Unlike the main text which included collections of the author’s myong, aesa,chemun, and chijang written for other people, the appendix was composedamongst others of haengjang and yusa[personal records of the deceased] as well asmansa, noesa, and chemun written by others to commemorate the passing of the

author. The epilogue was written by the person who compiled the work, andincluded other miscellaneous matters.

Although the practice of compiling such works was originally designed toensure that the work of outstanding scholars was left behind for futuregenerations, the strong role of ancestor worship and consanguinity in Chosonsociety all but ensured that such works also came to play a major role inconnecting the author to those with whom he had blood and school ties.Publishing such a collection was perceived in Choson society as a sign of both thelocal society’s admiration for the individual and of its economic capability. As aresult, the families that published such collections can be regarded as having beenmembers of the leading yangban elite. In other words, the data gleaned from suchmunjip should not be regarded as being representative of all Choson society, butrather as reflecting the upperclass’ marriage and childbirth patterns. What’s more,while in excess of 60% of the male subjects analyzed as part of this study heldgovernment ranks, most of the female subjects were either the male subjects’ wivesor the children thereof.

Along with chokpo, such munjip are widely perceived as the most importantsource of historical information on political, economic, social, and literary topics.Records pertaining to marriage and childbirth were regularly included in the maintext’s chimyong,2 aesa and chemun,3 haengjang,4 as well as in the yonbo found in theappendix. As these works consisted of records of the individual’s life history, theynaturally possessed information about matters related to birth, personal achievements,and death. Data regarding age at marriage was especially common in haengjangand chimyong written for women. Moreover, as data on their spouses was alsoincluded, these works can be regarded as a great source of information on yangbanbirths, marriages, and deaths. The data used for this study mainly emanates fromthe 650 munjip published under one cover by the Korea Culture&Content Agencyas Munjipch’ong’gan[Complete Compilation of Personal Anthologies]. Nearly 500of these documents have now been digitalized, and can be found at Arranged in a

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2 An inscription which contains the name of the deceased, date of birth and death, personalachievements, location of grave, and the direction of the grave. It is inscribed on stone and jade. Thiskind of inscription is referred to as kwangji, myoji, and chijang. myongmun[inscription] refers to aninscription that simultaneously records and commemorates the deceased person’s personalachievements. While the pimyong or beiming and myomyong or muming recording the personalachievements of the deceased first began to appear in China during the Later Han dynasty, they werealso manufactured in Korea, where they were known as pimyong and myomyong. For more details,please refer to Kim Yong-son 2006:67-85.

3 Aesa and chemun refer to memoriam expressing lamentations for the deceased. Aesa usuallydescribes the individual’s personality and cause of death for close relatives and children who did nothave a chance to enjoy the person during his natural life span. While aesa expresses lamentations forthe deceased in writing, chemun refers to memoriam which are carried out as part of the ancestralritual ceremony conducted after the sacrifices.

4 Haengjang refers to writings which record the personal history and achievements after aperson has passed away. This was written by a disciple, friend, contemporary, or son of the deceasedwho described the latter’s date of birth and death and included tidbits related to the family linage,name, penname, government position, as well as the person’s life and death. Such haengjangconstitutes the basic information with which the myongmun, manjang, pimun, and chongi wereprepared.

yearly fashion, the yonbo written for women, as well as the biographical section ofthose written for men, were found to contain a great amount of informationrelating to marriage. While data for a total of 3,040 people was collected as part ofthis study, only that pertaining to the 700 people whose year of marriage was alsorecorded was employed. The marriage records collected as part of this studyconsisted of those relating to the elitist yangban class. To this end, while 60% of thesubjects had government positions, 10% of these yangban held government rankshigher than that of tangsang’gwan[State Councillor]. Thus, this data for the mostpart concerns the higher-ranked members of the yangban class.

Aside from the munjip, the data employed also included 393 cases of honso.5

Moreover, data relating to births and deaths was extracted from sources such as thechokpo of the Muan-taegun branch of the Chonju Yi clan, the Changch’on-kunbranch of the Chonju Yi clan, 6 branches of the Kangnung Kim clan, and theChongrang-kong branch of the Hamyang Pak clan. All in all, this study made useof information pertaining to 14,068 individuals.6

Table 1. Cases of marriage by period

III. Age at MarriageMarriage can in many regards be perceived as an official agreement at the societallevel to produce children. Early marriage and the ban on the female spouse’sremarriage can be perceived as the main characteristics that prevailed withinChoson society as far as the yangban’s marriage customs were concerned. Thecustom of marrying at a young age can be regarded as having been a commonphenomenon in traditional societies. While Europe(25-29) and Japan(20-26) wereobvious exceptions to this trend, the phenomenon of early marriage was commonin other areas such as traditional Asia and Africa. This includes China where theaverage age at marriage was 16-19.7 As we can see from Diagram 1, it is difficult toprecisely determine whether trends in male and female ages at marriage show anincrease or decrease. It is particularly difficult to ascertain what kind of trends infemale age at marriage are in fact exhibited. In such instances, the regressioncoefficient can be calculated using a regression analysis, with the determinationmade thereafter as to whether the result is statistically significant or not. With thisin mind, changes in the trends of age at first marriage were ascertained using aregression coefficient that was estimated through a regression analysis in which

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PARK Hee-jin

5 With regard to the materials related to honso, please refer to Park Hee-jin 2006:5-6.6 With regard to the materials related to chokpo, please refer to Park Hee-jin and Cha Myong-

su 2003:6-9.7 Lee and Campbell 1997:89; Lee and Wang 1999:67; Tsuya 2001:112-114.

Before14th

Century15th

Century16th

Century17th

Century18th

Century19th

Century20th

Century Total

Male 5 19 119 124 137 178 66 648

Female 2 4 21 49 128 184 57 445

time was employed as the independent variable and age at first marriage as thedependent variable.

Table 2. Age at marriage by half-century

A. Trends in female age at marriage, 1500-1945

B. Trendsin male age at marriage, 1400-1945

Diagram 1. Trends in age at marriage

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Period Male First wife Second wife

1400-99 17.43 12.831500-49 17.98 15.331550-99 18.03 15.501600-49 17.46 16.351650-99 16.21 17.21 18.001700-49 16.15 17.05 21.571750-99 15.19 16.09 18.601800-49 16.50 17.30 19.451850-99 15.54 16.80 20.831900-49 16.33 16.67 17.501950- 25.33 21.71

Average 16.67 16.76 19.63

In order to conduce a more detailed analysis, the period under study was,based on the two historical events known as the Hideyoshi Invasions andcolonization, divided into three distinct periods once the regression analysis for theentire period was conducted(1400-1599, 1600-1899, and after 1900). In terms ofthe results of the regression analysis for the entire period, the coefficient of maleage at marriage showing changes in trends in such male age at marriage over timeexhibited a negative value. As this negative value indicates a gradual move in theopposite direction, we can surmise that the male age at marriage became lowerover time. Furthermore, the P-value, which indicates the probability of theinvalidity of the statistical results, was 0.000. Thus, there is a 0% probability thatthe assertion that male age at marriage in fact became lower over time is incorrect.In other words, the results of the regression analysis have a significance level of99%. The trend towards a decrease in male age at marriage over time can thereforebe all but confirmed. Meanwhile, the positive value derived with regards to femaleage at marriage can be construed to mean that female age at marriage in effectincreased over time. Moreover, as the P-value was 0.001, the likelihood that theclaim of an increase in female age at marriage is erroneous is in fact 1/1000; hereagain, the results can be deemed to be reliable.

Taking a good look at the outcome of the analysis by period, we see thatdespite a significance level of 90% for both males and females, the results for theperiod of 1400-1599 are in fact hard to perceive as being reliable. The difficultiesanalyzing the direction of trends in male and female ages at marriage led to theconclusion that no significant changes in male and female ages at marriage in facttook place during this period. However, male and female ages at marriage went indifferent directions following the emergence of the Hideyoshi and Qing invasions.While the male age at marriage during1600-1899 exhibited a downward trend,obvious trends in female age at marriage were harder to ascertain. This seems to bethe result of the fact that the death of a large number of men in these wars caused the

Table 3. Results of thetime-series regression analysis conducted on age at marriage: 1400-1945

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PARK Hee-jin

Male N Coeff. t stat. P-value R2

1400-1899 575 -0.006 -5.9871 0.000 0.0588

1400-1599 143 0.0077 1.4536 0.148 0.0147

1600-1899 433 -0.0048 -3.0317 0.002 0.0208

1900- 65 0.1666 7.3594 0.000 0.4622

Female

1400-1899 336 0.0045 3.3143 0.001 0.0318

1400-1599 52 0.0913 5.5147 1.229 0.3782

1600-1899 312 0.0007 0.3862 0.699 0.0004

1900- 25 0.0094 1.8108 0.083 0.1247

male age at marriage to decrease as families sought to ensure their lineages;however, even if women marry at a younger age, there is an inherent limitation interms of the age in which childbirth becomes possible. Male and female ages atmarriage both increased from 1900 onwards. The decrease in the death rateoccasioned by the introduction of medical technology and concurrent increase ineducational and employment opportunities begun during the colonial era causedchanges in marriage customs.

IV. Ban on Female Remarriage The fact that men were able to keep concubines from the yangin[commoner] ornobi[slave] class meant that Choson was in reality a polygamous society.Nevertheless, a man was only allowed to formally marry one woman. The womenreferred to as pae, sil, or ch’wi in the chokpo were of course the formal spouse. Awoman could only be formally recognized as the legal spouse when the previouswife had either passed away or a divorce had occurred.

A man was naturally free to remarry following his wife’s death. In thisregard, the data shows that 90% of men whose spouses passed away did in factremarry. In terms of the time frame for remarriage, data pertaining to 77 cases ofsecond marriages and 7 instances of third marriages indicat that, as shown in Table4, in excess of 70% of men remarried within 1-3 years of their wives death.

Table 4. Time frame forremarriage afterdeath offirst wife

Diagram 2. Age of the second wife at the time of the passage of the first wife

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Less than one year

1-2 2-3 3-5 6-10Morethan

10 yearsSecond

Marriage15.584 38.961 23.377 16.883 3.8961 1.2987

ThirdMarriage 42.857 28.571 14.286 0 14.286 0

On the other hand, women belonging to the yangban class were prohibitedfrom remarrying. During the late Choson era, women who remarried, as well astheir families, not only found themselves stripped of their status as yangban, buttheir children were also banned from securing government jobs. Meanwhile, yollyo[virtuous women] who never remarried were widely regarded as the pride of theirfamilies. The conditions that needed to be met in order to secure the status ofyollyo became more stringent during the late Choson era. In this regard, this banon women from the yangban class remarrying was more strictly enforced after the17th century as part of overall society’s strengthening of the patrilineal order.Moreover, the ban on remarriage also began to be strictly applied to women fromthe commoner class from the 18th century onwards.8

The deeply engrained nature of this practice is supported by the researchconducted by Kwon Tae-hwan(1977) which found that as late as the 1960s, bywhich time many traditional customs had been dismantled, more than 70% ofwidowed women viewed remarriage in a negative light.

While the actual rate of women’s remarriage during this period remainsunclear, the best means of estimating the extent to which the ban on remarriagewas abided by is through a look at the age of the second wife at the time of the firstspouse’s death. As Choson maintained the principle of one husband and one wife,a man was only allowed to remarry after a divorce or after the death of his spouse.Therefore, by determining the gap in terms of the time which elapsed between thedeath of the first wife and the man’s remarriage, as well as the second wife’s age atthe time of the first wife’s death, we can estimate the second wife’s age at the timeof marriage. However, marriage traditions in Choson at that time were such thatinstances in which a woman from the yangban class remained unmarried over theage of 25 were very rare. Therefore, the presence of many cases in which womenwere older than 25 at the time of the men’s remarriage can be construed as a clearsign that many women were in fact getting remarried. Conversely, the presence ofmany cases in which women were younger than 25 at the time of the men’sremarriage can be perceived as a sign that few women were getting remarried.

In order to conduct this analysis, the second wife’s age at the time of thedeath of the first wife was estimated based on the family genealogies. As we can seefrom Diagram 2, the second wife’s age was consistent with the average age of firstwives at the time of their deaths. This study also found an overlap between theages of the first and second marriages. Furthermore, as can be seen in Table 4, 78%of the men remarried within three years after the death of the first wife. Moreover,the gap between the men’s marriages was found to be of an average 2.36 years. Assuch, we can estimate the age of the second wife at the time of marriage based onthe age of second wife at the time of the death of the first wife. By adding theaverage period until the remarriage occurred to be an average age of the secondwife at the time of the death of the first wife(16.75 years old), the conclusion canbe reached that the average age of the second wife at the time of the man’sremarriage was 19.11 years old.

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PARK Hee-jin

8 For more details, please refer to Yi Nung-hwa 1991 and Kim Kuen-tae 2005.

Comparing this with the average age of the 46 women whose age atremarriage could actually be confirmed, this study found that the average age ofthese remarried women was approximately 19.63 years old. Therefore, we canconclude that the average remarriage age of women was somewhere between 19-20 years old. While we have no way of knowing for sure whether these womenwere virgins, Diagram 3, which deals with age at marriage of remarried women,indicates that there was a high rate of firstmarriage at a late age.

Analyzing the ratio of women older than 25, who had a higher possibility ofbecoming the subject of a man’s remarriage, based on the age of the second wife atthe time of the death of the first wife, we can see that the ratio decreased over timeduring the Choson dynasty, but rapidly increased after the Japanese colonial era.There were of course cases in which women were younger than 25 when theyremarried, and in which women married for the first time when they were olderthan 25. However, the marriage customs of Choson were such that marriage wasusually conducted during the ages of 16-20. Thus, it was highly likely that womenover the age of 25 were the subject of remarriage. In this sense, it can be regardedthat the remarriage ratio of the yangban women of Choson was relatively very low.As the rate of women who fell within the range of the ages covered by thismarriage custom increased following the opening of the country during the late19th century, the conclusion can be reached that the ban on yangban women’sremarriage slowly collapsed.

Diagram 3. Age of the second wife at marriage

Table 5. The ratio of women older than 25 years old at the time of the man’s remarriage

Note: The figure for women older than 25 years old was calculated by combining the age of the

second wife at the time of the death of the first wife with the average 2-year period until a man remarried

after the death of his first wife.

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Year Before 1700 1700-99 1800-99 1900-45

Ratio (%) 13.33 9.27 6.98 25.46

V. Factors affecting childbirthThis study began the task of estimating how the age at marriage and the ban on

women’s remarriage affected fertility by collecting data related to age at marriagefrom munjip and honso. Thereafter, this data was connected to the records of birthsand deaths found in the chokpo. This was in turn followed by an analysis of theamount of time spent married and single. Factors other than age at marriage whichwere found to affect childbirth included the amount of time one was married aswell as the amount of time a fertile woman remained unmarried. The absence ofartificial birth control methods meant in essence that the longer a womanremained married, the greater the possibility that the overall birthrate would go upbecame. Conversely, the custom banning a woman from remarrying after herspouse died resulted in making a prolonged period without a spouse a drag onotherwise fertile women’s birthrate.

The importance of age at marriage in explaining fertility lies not in theactual marriage age itself, but rather in the fact that a woman’s age represented oneof the key factors in determining her period of fertility. Factors other than age atmarriage that affected a woman’s fertility period included her own death of that ofher spouse, divorce, or remarriage.9 However, in the case of late Choson society,divorce, to say nothing of women’s remarriage, was socially forbidden within theyangban class. Thus, in accordance with the assumption that women neverremarried, this study estimated women’s fertility period based on data pertaining tothe life span of women and their spouses, as well as women’s age at marriage,gleaned from munjip and honso.10 The chokpo used in this article included thoserelated to 6 branches of Kangnung Kim clan, namely the Koedang-kong okga,Moam-kong, Pujong-kong, Illo-kong, Ch’onggan-kong, and Pyong’ui-kong branches; 2branches of the Chonju Yi clan: Muan-taegun and Changch’on-kun branches, and tothe Chongnang-kong branch of the Hamyang Pak clan.11 These chokpo indicate thatthe general practice amongst the yangban in Choson society was for one man tohave one wife. However, the men were allowed to remarry when the wife passedaway. Given the difficulties associated with identifying the biological parents incases where men had more than one wife, this study solely made use of datarelated to couples whose dates of birth and death were clearly recorded and whohad only one spouse during their lifetimes. Moreover, the data on childbirth was

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PARK Hee-jin

Coeff. t-static P-value

Women 0.134979 1.4887 0.1366

Men -0.18187 -2.3763 0.0175

Duration of marriage 0.030071 4.5345 0.0000

Duration of -0.02246 -3.3738 0.0007

R2 0.129688

Table 6. Factors affecting childbirth between 1700 and 1900

based on the number of children born in wedlock. All in all, data pertaining to3,536 of the 18,372 people surveyed was analyzed. In this regard, given the ratherunreliable nature of chokpo written before 1700, the period under analysis waslimited to between 1700-1900.12 A regression analysis was conducted to analyze thefactors that affected childbirth. While the number of children found in the chokpowas considered as a dependent variable, the age at marriage for both men andwomen, portion of women’s fertility period in which the spouse was alive, as wellas the portion of women’s fertility period in which the spouse had passed away, wasemployed as the explanatory variables.

The presence of a significance level of 90% results in making it impossibleto deem the data concerning the influence of female age at marriage on childbirthas being reliable; therefore, the conclusion cannot be reached that the female age atmarriage did in fact influence childbirth.

Conversely, male age at marriage and the portion of women’s fertility periodin which the spouse was alive, as well as the portion of women’s fertility period inwhich the spouse had passed away, were revealed to influence childbirth. Thenegative value recorded in terms of the male age at marriage can be taken to meanthat childbirth decreased when the male age at marriage increased. However, asmentioned in Section III, as the male age at marriage exhibited a downward trend,the conclusion can be reached that the yangban class did in fact encourage adecrease in the male age at marriage as a means of heightening the childbirth rate.The positive value recorded where the portion of women’s fertility period in whichthe spouse was alive is concerned can be construed as proof positive that theincrease in childbirth was intricately linked to the length of time a woman livedtogether with her spouse. Conversely, the negative value assigned to the portion ofwomen’s fertility period in which the spouse had passed away points to a reverseeffect. In conclusion, the longer a couple lived together, the more the childbirthrate increased.

Under the assumption that the other conditions that affect fertility, such asthe period of lactation, birth control, frequency of sexual intercourse, and customsrelated to marriage were constant, the number of children born was found to bemost heavily dependent on the man’s age at marriage, portion of women’s fertilityperiod in which the spouse was alive, as well as the portion of women’s fertilityperiod in which the spouse had passed away than on the woman’s age at marriage.This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that women’s age at marriage beganafter the middle of the 17th century to generally reflect the initial onset of women’s

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9 While factors such as period of lactation and the use of separate sleeping quarters alsoinfluenced the fertility period, these factors were assumed to be constant in this study because of thedifficulty finding data related to these matters.

10 The age at marriage was calculated by 10-year unit. For example, if the average age atmarriage in 1600 was estimated at 17 years old, then the birth year of those of this age would be1583. However, based on this method, this study estimated that all those who were born during theperiod spanning 1583-1592 were 17 years old.

11 For more on the chokpo data, please refer to Ch’a Myong-su 2004:3-7.12 Park Hee-jin and Cha Myong-su 2003; Cha Myong-su 2004.

menarche.13 On the other hand, because the portion of women’s fertility period inwhich the spouse was alive, as well as the portion of women’s fertility period inwhich the spouse had passed away, was determined by the mortality of oneself andone’s spouse and the age at marriage, the number of children was affected by adultmortality and the ban on female remarriage. However, since the number ofchildren shown in the chokpo in principle also included people who lived after theinitial marriage, this number can be regarded as representing net reproduction thatis not related to the fertility of this first generation, but rather to that fertility of theensuing generation. As a result, because the birthrate for males and females wasmaintained at a stable rate of about 105, the number of male children could bereplaced by the number of female children. Thus, other conditions being stable,reproduction in Choson society during the 18-19th centuries was affected mainlyby the male spouse’s age at marriage and mortality. This phenomenon, in which arising infant mortality rate pushed clans towards early marriages in order toadvance the onset of childbirth, also occurred in Taiwan.14

VI. ConclusionThis study estimated the patterns of marriage and age at marriage in Chosonsociety, and the factors that affected changes in net reproduction. While women’sage at marriage was generally stable during the 15th-19th centuries, this began tochange from the 20th century onwards. Meanwhile, men’s age at marriageexhibited a tendency to continuously decrease. Moreover, men’s age at marriagewas also found to be affected by the adult mortality rate, which as seen above,continuously increased after the 18th century. To remedy this situation and ensurethe continuation of their lineages, Choson’s yangban adopted the strategy of earlymarriage. Because women could not produce a child during their fertility period,women’s age at marriage was in large based on their menarche age.15 This meansthat men’s age at marriage was used as a tool through which to preserve the familyin the patrilineal society. Thus, the ban on yangbanwomen’s remarriage, along withmen’s age at marriage, can be perceived as having played a significant role inenabling the yangban to restrict net reproduction in the Choson society.

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13 Park Hee-jin 2006:15-16.14 Schultz 1980:23015 With regard to the menarche age of Choson women, please refer to Park Hee-jin 2006.

GLOSSARY

REFERENCES

Kim Yong-son 김용선. 2006. “TongAsia chungsesahoeui kumsokmun: Koryosidaemyojimyong munhwaui chongaewa ku charyojok t’uksong” 동아시아중세사회의금석문:고려시대묘지명문화의전개와그자료적특성. In Taedong munhwayon’gu 大東文化硏究, vol.55. pp.65-87.

Park Hee-jin 박희진. 2002. “Chosonhugi kagyedang p’yonggyunkusu ch’use-Chokporul iyonghan kajokchaegusongul chungsimuro” 조선후기 가계당 평균구수 추세-족보를 이용한 가족재구성을 중심으로. In Kyongje sahak 經濟史學,vol. 33. pp.3-33.

Park Hee-jin 박희진. 2006. “Yangbanui honinyollyong-Honsorul chungsimuro” 양반의 혼인연령- 혼서를중심으로. In Kyongje sahak 經濟史學, vol. 40. pp.3-20.

Park Hee-jin 박희진 and Cha Myong-su 차명수. 2003. “Choson hugiwa iljesidaeuiingu pyondong-Chonju Yi-ssi Changch’ongunp’awa Hamyang Pak-ssi

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aesa 哀詞

cham 箴

Changch’on-kun 長川君

chemun 祭文

chijang 誌狀

chimyong 誌銘

chokpo 族譜

chongi 傳記

Ch’onggan-kong 靑簡公

Chongnang-kong 正郞公

Chonchu 全州

chuso 奏疏

ch’wi 娶

haengjang 行�

Hamyang 咸陽

honso 婚書

Illo-kong 逸老公

Kangnung 江陵

Koedang-kong okga 槐堂公玉街

ki 記

Kim 金

Kwangji 壙誌

mansa 輓辭

manjang 輓章

Moam-kong 慕庵公

Muan-taegun 撫安大君

munjip 文集

myomyong/muming 墓銘

myoji 墓誌

myong 銘

myongmun 銘文

nobi 奴婢

noesa 詞

pae 配

Pak 朴

pimyong/beiming 碑銘

Pujong-kong 副正公

P’yong’ui-kong 評議公

si 詩

sil 室

so 書

so 序

tangsang’gwan 堂上官

yangban 兩班

yangin 良人

Yi 李

yollyo 烈女

yonbo �譜

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