Changes in Jokbo

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Mark Peterson

Changes in Jokbo

Posted : 2019-01-06 18:03

Updated : 2019-01-06 19:52

By Mark Peterson

Jokbo is the Korean word for the published genealogical tables. The term is well-known in Korea, and for good reason. Korea probably has the greatest concentration of genealogical publications of any country on Earth. In other words, more Koreans are recorded in genealogical books than any other people in any other country on Earth. Koreans publish a lot of jokbo.

As I wrote last week, the Korean textbooks ignore the Confucian orthodoxy movement of the late 17th century when so many social practices came in line with fundamentalist Confucianism. In addition to ceremonies, inheritances and marriage practices, the genealogies changed ― jokbo came to be recorded in a different way.

The Andong Gweon jokbo of 1476

Let's illustrate the change by looking at an early Joseon period jokbo and a contemporary jokbo:

Here we can see one of the differences between early Joseon society and late Joseon society or contemporary society. The one from 1476 ― the first printed jokbo in Korea ― shows that sons and daughters were recorded equally ― that is, the children in each family were recorded in birth order, and the posterity of the daughters was recorded in as much detail as the sons.

In the contemporary jokbo, one typical of the genealogies published in the late Joseon period up to today, in any family, the sons are listed first, and the daughters are listed after all the sons. The sons' listing includes vital statistics and records of any accomplishments. The daughters are only listed by whom they married. The sons' lines continue downward for generation after generation; the daughters' lines are not continued.

A typical jokbo published recently

Even if one cannot read the Chinese, the script used for genealogies (although some modern editions will include hangeul to make it easier to read), one can easily see, just from looking at the format of these two documents, how different they are. These differences can be seen as two different "snapshots" of the society of their times: the one on the left showing balance and a measure of equality in family and society; the one on the right showing a society tilted toward men almost to the point of excluding women. The listing of women ― the wives that move into the patrilineal household, and the daughters that marry out ― are listed mainly as the mothers of the men of their husbands' lineage. It is a kind of reluctant recognition that men can't bear children by themselves.

This transformation in the printing of jokbo is symbolic of the changes in Korean society in the late Joseon period. The late 17th century was the point of change. Textbooks don't cover it. It's like a secret. "Hey, don't tell anyone that Korea used to be much more egalitarian." As I said last week, there were two forms of Confucianism in Korea ― the early egalitarian Confucianism ― the true Korean-style Confucianism, and the late Joseon orthodox Confucianism. One of my readers likes to use the term "fundamentalist Confucianism" ― the Confucianism of the late Joseon period.

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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