조선전기 부처제(婦處制)와 ‘사나운 처’(悍婦) (The Matrilocal Residence Rule and 'Fierce Wives' in the Early Joseon(Chosŏn) Period)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국여성사학회
· 수록지 정보 : 여성과 역사 / 25호 / 1 ~ 27페이지
· 저자명 : 강명관

초록

‘한부(悍婦)’는 ‘사나운 처’란 뜻이다. ‘한부’는 조선시대 전체에 걸쳐 존재하지만, 그 양상은 시대별로 상이했다고 생각된다. 특히 조선전기의 『실록』은 조선후기와는 비교할 수 없을 정도로 많은 사례가 보이고, 또 한부의 성격 역시 조선후기와는 사뭇 달랐다고 생각된다. 이것은 조선 여성사에서 의미 있는 현상이라고 생각된다.
‘한부’는 양변적(兩邊的) 친족제와 결혼 뒤 남성이 처가에 거처하는 부처제(婦處制) 등 고려시대 이래의 친족제도를 배경으로 갖는다. 이것을 배경으로 하여 남성의 복수적 성관계에 대해 증오의 감정을 드러내는 여성을 특별히 한부라 부른 경우가 다수 발견된다. 한부의 존재는 주로 조선전기에 집중적으로 나타나며, 그것은 남성과 여성의 관계에서 경우에 따라 여성 권력이 우위에 있었던 것을 보여주는 현상으로 보인다.
‘한부’의 존재는 임병양란 이후 문헌에서 점차적으로 사라진다. 물론 완벽하게 사라지는 것은 아니지만, 그 빈도는 현저하게 줄어들고, 또 ‘사나움의 표현’ 역시 현저하게 약화된다. 그것은 아마도 임병양란 이후 단계적(單系的) 부계친족제(父系親族制)의 성립과 부처제(婦處制)에서 부처제(夫處制)로의 변화가 그 원인일 것이다.

영어초록

'Hanbu' collectively means 'fierce wives' who existed throughout the entire history of Joseon, but they had different characters according to the different times of the country. As described in 『The True Stories of the Joseon Dynasty』, fierce wives, or 'hanbu' were in the early period of Joseon even more than in the late. And the characters of 'hanbu' were so different between both of the times. 'Hanbu' was so meaningful phenomenon in the women's history of Joseon.
Supporting fierce wives who could ignore their husband were the characteristics of the kinship system handed down from the Koryo period to the early Joseon period. Those characteristics included the both-sided kinship system and the matrilocal residence rule according to which men was supposed to live in their wife's home after marriage. However, those systems were not necessarily, but partly related to the fierceness of wives. Since the establishment of the noble rule system in 1392, noble men set out to build up institutions that controlled women's sex and allowed noble men to have multiple sexual relationships with many different women. By the way, the feeling of jealousy that women may have towards such relationships became what noble men were most concerned about. When women expressed that feeling, whether verbally or behaviorally, thus, they were called as 'hanbu' by noble men.
‘The stories of 'hanbu' couldn't be found in literature after the Joseon-Japan and the Joseon-China Wars, or respectively Imjinwaeran and Byeongjahoran. Of course, it doesn't mean that there's not any fierce wife in the reality. Instead, such women decreased remarkably and 'fierce wives' ,if any, weakened surprisingly. These changes are probably attributed to the facts that after the wars as mentioned above, the matrilocal residence rule was replaced by the patrilocal residence rule and, simultaneously, that the hierarchical patrilineal kinship system was established. To control women's fierceness, besides, noble men defined that obedience and submission are the essence of feminity and stressed that no jealousy is an integral part of female ethics. In a similar vein, noble men worked hard to distribute texts like 『Sohak』, 『Yeolnyeojeon』, 『Yeogye』 and 『Yeocheuk』 in order to change women's ways of thinking in a direction that those men wanted. The distribution was not easy at first. The texts could be distributed in earnest in the mid late 17th century when Song Si-yeol put out his writing, 『Wooam Seonsaeng Gyeseonyeo』 whose setting was based on the patrilocal residence rule which provided that women must move to and live at their husband's home after marriage. In conclusion, the cases of fierce wives who were called 'hanbu' were mostly found in the early Joseon period, suggesting that period was when women was superior to men within the context of power relationships.

참고자료

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