Paradigm shifts in jokbo understanding

By Mark Peterson

Last month, after writing a "call to arms" for all Koreans, especially the female half of Korea, to redo their jokbo (genealogies) and start to think of jokbo as the pre-18th-century Korean "pal-gojodo" chart, which is the same as the Western "five-generation pedigree chart." I started thinking more about what it will take to bring about such a paradigm shift. And it appears it would be difficult. But maybe not.

We've already seen the paradigm shift from son-preference to daughter-preference in recent decades. This followed the paradigm shift from the large family and the three-generation family to the nuclear family. This followed the paradigm shift from a 90 percent rural society to a 90 percent urban society. This included the paradigm shift from a single-story "hanok" house to living in an apartment, initially as high as on the 10th, over time to the 20th, the 30th, the 40th, or the 50th floor.

After all of these paradigm shifts, and many other related ones, is it too much to expect a paradigm shift from the male-line, agnatic jokbo, to a more genetically accurate pal-gojodo balanced system where all ancestors, male and female, are included? Is that expecting too much? I don't think so.

Don't think of me as advocating change ― that's not my job. I am observing change, and I am predicting that the next perceivable paradigm shift in Korean society might be that involving the male-dominated jokbo records.

I think we can predict that soon people will be looking at jokbo, not as a document to establish one's credentials in society, and no longer as a document for men to claim upper-class status, but as an interesting hobby where one researches one's female as well as male ancestors.

And Korea has lots of documents, perhaps the greatest concentration of published jokbo of any country in the world. Do not let the false idea we sometimes hear, that women are not included in the traditional Korean jokbo, prevent you from researching female lines. Because women ARE recorded in traditional Korean jokbo ― it's just that their lines are not continued upward or downward the way the male lines are.

Let me explain the paradigm shift a little more. If I were to ask you how many great-great-grandfathers you have, "kojo harabeoji" ― and you thought to say one ― oh brother, you are deep in male-dominated psychology. If you think you can outwit me and show how smart you are by saying two ― a male line and a female line ― you are pulling away from male dominance, but you've got a long way to go! You have eight great-great-grandfathers, and eight great-great-grandmothers. Of these 16 people, only one has to have your surname. The other 15 almost always have different surnames ― these lines you might call your maternal lines, but that, too, is a little oversimplified.

The key to finding all 16 of your great-great-grandparents is the male-line jokbo because it does, in fact, have a record of some females. Mothers, wives, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, great-great-grandmothers, daughters, granddaughters and nieces are all listed in the male-centered genealogy. It's a matter of reorienting your approach to the document.

The traditional Korean jokbo is a top-down document in a pyramid shape, with the apex, the first ancestor, at the top, and more and more descendants coming down till we get to "you" with all your currently living relatives (with the same surname). The "reoriented" jokbo is also a triangle, but it's an inverted triangle, with the point at the bottom, "you," and ever more and more ancestors moving up the arms of the triangle (or climbing the family tree, if you prefer). Both types of genealogy are triangles, but one is the inverted form of the other.

So, as Korea shifts paradigms in reckoning kinship, in much the same way that it has shifted paradigms in many other aspects of modern society, and as Korea moves away from the male-dominated social order and kinship organization, jokbo is going to have to change, too. And the format is there. Not only in the form of bilateral kinship charts the way kinship is reckoned in the West, but in the shape of the pre-18th century Korean form of jokbo ― the pal-gojodo.

As one builds one's family tree, going upward from oneself, to two parents, to four grandparents, to eight great-grandparents, to sixteen great-great-grandparents, and as one fills in these 30 names to complete the chart, then one is faced with the question of going onward up the family tree to the three-great-grandfather level (in Korean the odae-harabeoji, the fifth great-grandfather) to the fourth great-grandfather level (in Korean the yukdae-harabeoji, the sixth great-grandfather), one begins to see the work is endless. Which is why it is one of the most compelling hobbies in the world ― there is no end to it.

And it all starts with a paradigm shift from male-dominated jokbo, and male-dominated society, to a male and female balanced orientation toward family, each other, society and the new jokbo ― like the old pal-gojodo. That's the beginning.

Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.

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