박문호(朴文鎬)(著) 『여소학(女小學)』의 내용과 의미 (Park Mun-ho’s Yeo-Sohak (Sohak for Women), Contents and Meaning)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국사학회
· 수록지 정보 : 사학연구 / 143호 / 79 ~ 124페이지
· 저자명 : 이정민

초록

『여소학』은 충청도 유생 박문호가 여성 교육의 부재에 대한 비판의식을 바탕으로 저술한 서적이다. 근대적 여성상의 제창보다는 ‘의리지학’을 지향한 그의 학문적 성향에 맞게 전통적 여성상의 복원에 초점을 맞추었다. 학술사적 관점에서 본다면, 18세기 이후 등장하는 새로운 양상의 ‘소학류’ 서적과 흐름을 같이하는 서적이라 할 수 있다. 남녀유별, 여공(여성의 노동), 시집을 중심으로 한 인간관계를 강조한 점은 기존의 여성교육서와 비슷하지만, 동시기 ‘소학류’ 서적에 비해 수록된 ‘동국여성’의 사례 수는 적은 편이며, 여성 의례의 정리에 심혈을 기울이거나 여성 대상의 향례 공간으로서 ‘성녀묘’를 제안한 것은 이 책만의 특징이라 할 수 있다.
박문호의 문제의식은 『여소학』의 「고사」편 및 ‘성녀묘도설’의 성녀묘 배향 인물들에 포함된 여러 열녀 및 효녀 사례들에서 잘 드러난다. 양쪽 모두에 가장 높은 비중으로 등장하는 ‘열녀’와 관련하여, 박문호는 특히 위기에 처한 나라의 여성이 외적의 회유와 협박에 맞서 ‘의(義)’를 위해 자결한 ‘절사(節死)’ 사례에 주목하였다. 외세의 침입과 간섭, 일제의 조선 침탈의 격변기에 처한 저자의 이러한 문제의식은 개화기 교육자들의 여성 담론과도 맥을 같이하는 것으로, 근대와 전통의 접점에 대해 고민할 수 있는 단서를 제공한다. 반면 ‘효녀’의 경우 박문호의 또 다른 문제의식이 엿보인다. 「고사」편을 통해 부모를 위해 죽는 효녀, 기적적 감응을 유발하는 효녀들을 적극 강조함으로써 효행의 확산을 기도하는 한편으로, 미혼 상태로 부모를 봉양하거나 기혼임에도 시집 대신 친정에 집중했던 효녀 등 조선 사회에 적지 않게 존재했던 또 다른 효녀 사례 또한 적극 제시했던 것이다. 그 결과 조선 사회에서 지향하던 전통적 유교 여성상에 부합하는 여성 및 그와는 또 다른 모습으로 살아가던 여성들이 당시 공존했음을 드러내었다.

영어초록

Yeo-sohak was written by a person named Park Mun-ho, who was a Confucian scholar and lived in the Chungcheong-do region. Critical of the reality in which females were never granted adequate access to education, he created this book for them to have proper guidance. His intentions, however, were never to promote a modern ideal for women, but to facilitate restoration of a more traditional one.
Yeo-Sohak, while featuring aspects similar to those presented in other female educational materials authored by either traditional Confucian scholars or modern idealists, turned out to be quite different from them as well. Like other materials of the time, Park placed an emphasis on concepts such as different social roles for different genders, the value of female labor, and the virtue of obedience. He also promoted not only Chinese but Korean cases as well, albeit to a lesser degree compared to others. But at the same time he also deviated from the mold by allocating a substantial amount of efforts to the task of meticulously categorizing female ritual protocols, and even proposing the establishment of a Holy Women’s Shrine, a space reserved for memorials to commemorate honorable women.
We can see what Park Mun-ho wished to say from the “Old Stories” chapter of Yeo-Sohak, as well as an addendum attached to the end of Yeo-Sohak entitled “Seong’nyeo-myo Doseol”(A blueprint for the Inside of the Holy Women’s Shrine), as they both contain a lot of Yeol’nyeo (females who fiercely protected and preserved their own dignity and chastity, even by death) and Hyo’nyeo (pious daughters) cases. Regarding the former, Park took interest in particular Yeol’nyeo figures who willingly gave their lives to safeguard their own righteousness or the honor of their husbands, in the face of insurmountable odds, crises of a paramount nature, and formidable enemies. This was probably because Park, who was witnessing his own country’s sovereignty being stripped away by the Japanese, identified the females’ ultimate choice to give up their lives as the ultimate way to save the country in distress, just as other modern scholars did as well. Meanwhile, regarding the Hyo’nyeo cases, the pious daughters, Park highlighted many cases: daughters who would literally die for their parents, or daughters who invited mysterious and auspicious phenomena with their own pious actions, probably to encourage others to engage in such actions as well. Then he also highlighted other types of pious daughters, who for example refused to marry a man to instead care for their own parents, or even after getting married still remained pretty much devoted to their past maiden lives serving their own parents instead of the parents of their husbands. In the process, he let us know there have been two types of females in Joseon: who perfectly fit the traditional criteria for a female in Joseon, and who actually did not fit that model but remained pious nonetheless.

참고자료

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